


walk dont stride

by dontpanicbutterknife



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Coping, Horror, Illustrated, M/M, Psychological Horror, hinted stridercest, more canon than you think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-09 01:58:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/768647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontpanicbutterknife/pseuds/dontpanicbutterknife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Dave Strider, and ever since you witnessed your parents' deaths two months ago, you've been experiencing some serious PTSD. And, as if your life wasn't hard enough, you have to deal with returning to school, rekindling a finite relationship with your brother, and nursing a longtime crush on your longtime best friend, John Egbert.  Oh, and your brother is dating your nightmare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to my sis for making this fic possible

_there is a person_

_standing_

_not too far away from you_

_all alone_

_in this darkness that has been consuming you_

_for maybe a minute at least_

_you dont dare walk toward them_

_theyre turned away from you_

_theyre tall and slender_

_and pale_

_the air around them is cold_

_and they are naked_

_the only thing covering them_

_is a crumpled paper bag over_

_their head_

_you dont know if they know you are here_

_you want to turn and run but_

_you cant_

_move your_

_feet_

_you are terrified_

_shrouded in darkness this person_

_turns their head_

_and looks back_

_at you_

_through the large teal_

_eye_

_drawn on the front of their bag_

_you suck in a sharp breath of air_

_and feel your throat close up_

_you can see their ribs_

_trying to stab through their skin_

_and their stomach_

_caving in_

_like theyve been_

_wasting away_

_rotting_

_and suddenly_

_they are_

_right before you_

_upon you_

_breathing against their bag_

_they extend_

_a long_

_boney_

_hand_

_to your face_

_and theey_

_caress your cheek_

_run a finger down your neck_

_and you feel their smile_

_they want to eat you_

_they want to strip you_

_and rip you open_

_digg their nails into your neck_

_theyre_

_digging their_

_nai_

_ls into y_

_our nec_

_k and_

_youre eys clo_

_se and_

_you can_

_t movee_

_and_

_and_

_an_

_d a_

_nd_

_aand_

_a_

_ha_

_haa_

_haa_

_hee_

_hee_

_hoo_

_hoo_

_**** _

_And you wake up in cold sweat._

_You're panting out loud, and you realize you were holding your breath as you slept. This isn't the first time. You drop your sheets, which have been balled up in your fists until now, and drop your head, sighing. You've never dreamt so vividly about him before._

_Before you get up to wash all this grime off of your body, you check under your blankets. Third time since the accident you've wet your sheets. Great._

_Your name is Dave Strider, and you are pretty sure you're the only high schooler who still wets the bed._

_You'd help it if you could, but you aren't exactly in total control of your bladder when you're having these nightmares. Bro says it's just part of the PTSD. He doesn't know about the bed wetting. And he never will._

_You strip your bed of its sheets and run to the pantry where you can throw these disgusting things in the wash. It doesn't look like Bro's gotten up yet, so you're safe for another day. When you return to your room, you shut your door as quietly as you can, then slam your back against it. You slide down to the floor where you cover your face in your hands._

_You kept it together for maybe three minutes. Now you just sit there with your knees to your chest and you shake, thinking about your most recent nightmare. So motherfucking uncool._

_Bro doesn't usually let you get away with allowing your mind to tap into your fear and indulge it like this. Even in the privacy of your room. Bro's been really different since the accident. He's let you get away with pretty much everything. After all, you were there. You saw them. You witnessed them in their final moments._

_You let yourself go for only another moment before you force yourself to stand. You're stronger than this. You don't need a moment for yourself to recover from these nightmares, there is nothing to recover from._

_Just another nightmare about Cal._

_He's never actually told you his name, he's never said anything to you, but you know that's who he is. You can feel it in your brain as that eye stares back at you. You can taste the name on your lips when you're sucking in the dead air around the both of you._

_He terrifies you._

_You think the freakiest part about it might be the eye his bag sports on the front. The eye itself doesn't really mean anything to you, but you have vague memories of it in the back of your mind. Like deja vu or something. You think you remember back in kindergarten they used to hand out brown paper bags every few months, and some crayons, and you'd spend part of the day drawing things on the bags for the people at the nearby hospital. They'd give the patients their pills or lunches in the bags or something. It was just a thing some of the surrounding schools did as an act of kindness to the people in there._

_Once you were just so fed up with coloring the stupid things you think you just scribbled a large eye on one. You haven't thought about it until now. It probably has nothing to do with that memory, but that's the only eye you can remember having a resemblance to it._

_You've told Bro you've been having nightmares, but never told him about Cal. You don't know what he would think if he knew you dreamt of naked, lanky figures haunting you. He might laugh in your face like he used to. He doesn't really have all that much reason to laugh anymore._

_Once you're done thinking to yourself, you go to your bathroom to shower. Showering used to be really relaxing for you; more of a pastime than actually getting yourself clean. You loathe it now. You hate doing anything that involves taking your clothes off. You used to think you looked like the shit because you were so pale, thanks to the fact that you hardly leave your room, but now you think you just look like shit. You're disgusted with yourself._

_You hate how when you look at yourself in the mirror you feel the image of Cal in the back of your mind. You've never seen his face, or his hair, or anything above his neck for that matter, and you don't want to. You're afraid you might see yourself. You wish you could drag yourself outside to tan for once, but you don't want to leave your bedroom._

_Before you step into your shower, you run your hand over the scar on your hip. Your fingers ghost over the little rise in your skin, the pinker tissue pressing back against you. The scar is fresh, and it's deep. Bro told you that you were going to have to get used to seeing it. It wasn't going to fade because it was so deep. Just another reminder of them._

_You don't wash yourself in the shower. You just stand there, breathing heavily as the water washes over you. You have to go back to school. Bro won't let you stay home anymore. You begged him plenty of times; he didn't even fight back. He just turned his head, and told you he was sorry. You wished he'd given you a sarcastic remark, or had told you to man up and get over it like before. He wasn't even trying anymore._

_Neither of you were ready to go back to society yet. But that’s life._

_Bro had always taught you to be strong ever since you were little. You were a part of the Strider family. That meant no crying, no weakness, and no mourning. He was more a parent to you than your parents. You two had made a promise that you'd never live in the past when the other died. You'd never look back._

_You two had never realized how different it was saying it than actually doing it._

_You get out of the shower before you allow yourself anymore time to hate yourself. You put on a T-shirt and some jeans before exiting your room. Bro is sitting at the table already, sipping coffee. You've never seen him drinking coffee before. Your breakfast is already made and waiting for you at your seat. You can’t remember the last time you sat down and ate in the kitchen together as a family. You hardly consider this a family._

_You and Bro don't usually talk now, but when he sees you walk into the kitchen he speaks up._

_"Ready for your first day back?" He knows you aren't._

_"Ready for your first day at work?" You respond. He's never had to have a job before. There are too many changes in your life right now. You hate it._

_He says nothing in return, just goes back to sipping his coffee. You pick up your plate, shoving your dry toast in your mouth before dumping the rest of your breakfast in front of him. You expect him to point out how anime you are this morning as you head for the door, but instead he says, "I made you a lunch."_

_You think you might gag, but you return to the kitchen to get it anyway. This'll be the first time you aren't buying your lunch in three years._

_There it is, sitting on the counter, all nice and packaged in a little brown paper bag. You stand very still as you eye it from across the kitchen. Bro says nothing, but you know he's staring at you from behind his mug and his shades. Eventually you force yourself to go over to it and grab the fucking thing so you can leave. John is probably already waiting for you in your lobby._

_As you walk toward the elevator after leaving your apartment, you throw the lunch out the hall window. You don't bother watching it as it plummets._

_Just as you thought, your best friend is standing by the door in your lobby by the time you get down to the first floor, waiting quite anxiously for you. He's the only one who knows about Cal._

_"John," you say, trying to get his attention without having to scream out his name. He looks over and spots you, then picks up his bag. "You ready?"_

_It's his first day back at school too. "Yeah, dude, let's go already. I think I fell asleep standing up while waiting for you."_

_You instantly forget about Cal._

_You both leave the building, heading for the bus stop. Of all the people you know, John has changed the least since the accident. Maybe it was because he was there with you. He's the only one who knows you don't want to deal with being haunted by it forever. It's over. Nothing more to say. Let's go already._

_"How's Bro been taking it?" He asks as you approach the bus stop. It was quiet until then._

_"Like a champ. Went out and got a job, going to that today. Gonna make mad amounts of money. Nothing can possibly go wrong." You stop once you reach the corner. The bus should come any minute unless you've missed it._

_He's quiet for a while as you wait together. "What about you?"_

_You don't glance over at him. You show no signs of weakness whatsoever. "I told you, I'm over it. I didn't even know them that well. They were just kind of there, and now they're gone."_

_"Yeah, but you know if it was my dad..." He trails off as the bus pulls up in front of you. You both get on and head to an empty seat together. The bus is full of high school students, but no one talks to you. No one says anything as you get on, actually. They begin talking again once the two of you are sitting._

_"Just be glad it wasn't," you say to him once the bus starts rolling._

_You know from the look on his face that he still feels bad about the situation. "You saw them die, right in front of you though. I saw them die. Two months ago. Doesn't that bother you?"_

_John doesn't understand. You don't mourn. "It's a Strider thing."_

_He shuts up after that. He at least understands that much._

_John instead just lifts up his shirt enough to show you the scar running all the way across his abdomen. The one he got while sitting next to you in the backseat of your car two months ago. Sometimes you forget he was there too. Sometimes you forget he's just as traumatized as you._

_You put your arm around him in a mediocre attempt at pacifying him. It sort of works. He leans his head against your shoulder. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "I know you don't like talking about it."_

_You don't think anyone would like talking about how their parents died in a car accident while they sat in the backseat. Talk about how they both were mutilated and bled to death while you were able to walk away from the wreckage with just a cut on your hip along with your best friend._

_You really have no idea what you would do if John had also died with them. Your parents were busy workers and didn't have much time for you or your brother, so they were distant. You have hardly any good memories of them when you think about it. John on the other hand, is your life, and you love him. Without him you'd surely go insane._

_"They're staring at us," John whispers, lifting his head from your shoulder. His eyebrows are knitted together. He obviously doesn't like this._

_You go ahead and look over one of his shoulders. Some people are glancing over at you from time to time. You ignore them, sitting back up against your seat. You expected this much when you came back to school. You haven't been in contact with anyone but John since the car accident, except your long distance friends, so everyone else probably assumes you're still too jarred to be talked to. John isn't like that. Almost instantly after the accident you stopped talking about it all together with him and went back to being normal friends._

_It's almost like nothing happened._

_"So, about our conversation last night," John speaks up again, bringing up your most recent pesterings. You two have just recently gotten into the science of temporal displacement and other topics. He's kind of your big idea buddy along with your best friend. Talking about these kinds of things like if there were a zombie apocalypse or sudden global flooding are kind of your thing. It helps calm you down. "You said it could be possible to send objects through space using this device, by appearification?"_

_Everyone around you seems to leave you two alone at this point as you really get into it. "Not just that, transmaterialization. Supposedly top secret, hush hush, government agencies are working on a device that could be used to send objects through space. And not just that, spacetime."_

_John raises an eyebrow. "Time travel?" He's not a very big believer of that one. Sure, ghosts, aliens, and whatever the hell he associates with those categories, but he's pretty educated on the no side of debating time travel. "Not possible."_

_"Time travel is totally possible."_

_"No, if time travel were possible, then there'd be people from the present in the past, who would disrupt the natural flow of time, thus bringing about the destruction of the universe. It's impossible." He usually gets really into it like this when you bring the theory up._

_Your eyes are too tired to roll. "You're obsessed, bro."_

_The rest of the ride to school you cover quite a few other topics on your agenda to discuss, but save the major ones for lunch. Getting up might have been really fucking sucky, but you know when you watch John go off and start to monologue about the double mobius reacharound of the spacetime continuum that it's going to be a good day. You're not really sure if he knows himself what he's talking about—he might just be using all these vocabulary words to make himself sound smarter—but it doesn't really matter. You just enjoy watching it._

_You just enjoy watching him._

_"I had another nightmare," you tell him after getting off the bus. He hugs you._

_The bell for your first class rings before you can tell him you might have a crush on him, and he runs off to his first class. You have no classes together. Maybe you'll tell him tomorrow._

_or not_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theatre superstition tells us that ghosts are all around us.

_You have to stay late after your final class, which is theatre production. You have to get caught up with your teacher on what he wants to do for the new musical the drama class is putting on. He tells you the class missed you while you were away. He told you they were a wreck without you._

_This is only true because you’re the only kid in sound crew. No one else knows how to work the sound system._

_You don’t mind though, they mean nothing to you anyway._

_He tells you what he wants, then leaves you to your business. You end up staying late after school in the sound booth tinkering with the board after everyone else is gone. You missed the place. The sound booth is your domain, and no one can bother you here except the lighting crew during a production. Their crew captain has to come in and work the lighting board then, but it’s on the other side of the booth, and they usually don’t bother you. You like it like that._

_All of the stage lights and house lights are out, except the one just outside the booth, which casts and almost eerie glow as it illuminates just inside the booth through the door to the rest of the theatre. Inside the booth you work by the light of the computer monitors and flashing buttons of the Prime Mixing System. You can always flip on the uglies, which are the florescent lights inside the booth, but they hurt your eyes. You actually prefer the low light anyway._

_You go ahead and sit down in front of the main soundboard once you’re alone and check the dials to make sure no one has been messing with them. It doesn’t look like anyone has. Everything in the booth lays untouched since you left. Even the cover for the board had dust on it before you pushed it off._

_You sit back in your chair. There really is no need for you to be at school any longer, you’ve already done everything you’ve been asked to do, but you don’t feel like going home yet. You’ve spent so much time at home alone with Bro and you don’t want to deal with him at the moment. You just want to be alone in the dark booth. Out of having nothing to do, you plug your iPod into the computer beside the board and turn up the volume for the computer input and the house speakers so your music plays out the speakers. You must be pretty rusty, because you can’t seem to get it to play correctly._

_You only get static._

_You up the volume a bit more, but it does nothing to improve the quality. You can barely hear what vaguely sounds like the tracks you mixed yourself behind all this static, but there’s something else. It’s like a hushing sound. It’s like monotone whispers leaking out of the speakers reaching your ears. You can’t make out what they’re saying._

_You unplug your iPod before you blow out the speakers, and because you’re kind of freaking yourself out. You curse at the soundboard for being a cheap piece of shit before you pull out your earbuds. The school really needs to give you guys more funding for better equipment._

_Now it sounds fine. You relax back into your swivel chair as you let the music deliver you from the dark sound booth. It puts your mind at ease._

_And then you hear it again. You hear something beyond your earbuds. Like there is someone in the room trying to get your attention. For a second you’re too afraid to take out your buds and find out what the hell that noise is. You fight past it and rip them out of your ears, looking around, expecting to see someone. The sound is gone. The theatre is empty._

_You quickly get up, and decide to distract yourself by doing something else for a little while. You also forgot how creepy the theatre can be sometimes._

_You’re messing with the wireless mics and checking the batteries of all the headsets―because you know the guys in class sometimes forget to turn them off―when the door to the booth opens. You stop breathing._

_“I missed you down at the bus stop.”_

_You glance over your shoulder and smile to yourself, but John can’t see it. You put down the mics and switch them off before turning around to meet him. He’s leaned up against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest, sending you a teasing smirk. You can hardly see his face, since the only part of him that’s lit up is his back. He does this a lot. And by this, you mean show up at the booth after he’s supposed to be home._

_“Hey Egbert,” you say, and he gets up from leaning against the door frame and walks over._

_“First day back and they’ve already got you locked up in here again.” He sits down in one of the swivel chairs next to you and spins on it. “You’re their prisoner, Dave! You never see any of the other crews working late hours like you do.”_

_That isn’t actually true, the other crews stay after school some days, you just choose to remain in the booth after hours every day. John doesn’t like it. Never has. He complains about how he has to come get you so you can go home together. He complains about how you make him miss the bus. Of course, he could just go home alone, but it isn’t fun without you._

_You go ahead and get out of your seat, then flip on the uglies. They light up the entire booth. You probably should have turned them on when you first came into the booth, but they hurt your eyes most of the time due to your lack of sleep. Even before the accident you were prone to staying up late, chatting online with―well, John. John and Rose and Jade. Of course, the girls live thousands of miles away, so that was your excuse for them. You and John are just inseparable._

_John continues to spin in his chair before he gets up and moves to sit on the counter beside the soundboard. “So, the next bus doesn’t come for another fifteen minutes maybe...” He bites his lip the way he does when he’s trying to act cute to get what he wants. He knows you always fall for it. “Do you have the key to the green room?” He asks eagerly._

_He wants to go up onto the catwalk._

_Any day but today you would have the key, but the drama teacher hasn’t given it back to you yet. Tomorrow when you have to go up with the light crew he’ll give you back your key. John has been begging you to take him up there since he found out you were going to be taking theatre production at the beginning of the year. You haven’t really had the chance to, but you are going to someday. It’ll be a sight to behold, since he is deathly afraid of heights after all._   
_Maybe he’ll cling to you, or hold your hand. God you really wish you had that key on you._

_“Nah, sorry bro.”_

_He groans, then looks down to his right at the board. He’s always bugging you about teaching him how to use it, but you’re not very good at explaining. You learned everything on your own, so you’d rather everyone else do too. He begins twisting dials._

_“Hey, hey, don’t go fucking anything up. You’re gonna break something.”_

_He turns back to you and makes the face again. God you want to slap it off of him. You roll your eyes for a second before you go over to the storage cabinet to get him a wireless mic. You’ll do anything for him. You patch it using the Prime Mixing System, then return to the board, flipping it on._   
_“What did you call that thing again?” John asks, pointing over at the Prime Mixing System. You have a little joke about it._

_You look up from the board as you press the PFL button, and take a glance back at where he’s pointing. You smirk. “PMS,” you reply, giving the bulky machine a nice pat. The reason you call her that is because she pretty much is a huge bitch most of the time. You make a mental note of talking to the drama teacher later about having her replaced._

_He laughs. You’ve told him this joke at least twelve times already._

_Once you’ve got the mic all set up you hand it to him. “Okay, press this when you’re ready,” you tell him, taking his hand and putting his finger over the mute button on the board. You release him a few seconds after you should have, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “There’ll be about a three second delay, so just keep talking until you hear something.”_

_He doesn’t hesitate to start screaming, “Test! Test! Testing, one, two, three!” You turn down the volume for the mains as you nearly blow out the house speakers. He looks pretty excited._

_You sit back and watch him quote movies and sing shitty songs into the mic as you wait for the next bus. Maybe you’ll miss it, and then you’ll just have to wait another half hour in the booth for the one after that. You wouldn’t mind. You show him the dials above the input you’re using for the mic and he pans in and out of the left and right speakers the rest of the time, finding it hilarious._

_Eventually he gets bored of the mic and as you turn everything off and put it away, he goes on and on about how you know so much about mixing and shit, like you have some kind of special gift. You know that anyone can work a mixer with a little practice, but that doesn’t mean you don’t appreciate his comments. He still thinks you’re some kind of sound god._

_You flip off the uglies before he can catch you with a slight dust of pink on your cheeks. You scoop up your backpack, and he his, then leave the booth to head down to the bus stop together. Just before you exit the theatre you turn back around, telling him to wait a second as you go plug in the ghost light._

_The drama teacher would kill you if he found out you hadn’t plugged it in, and would seriously flip his shit if he knew you’d unplugged it after he left. That thing scares the crap out of you and you’re not sure why. It’s definitely not because you believe in the horseshit horror stories of the theatre―you once screamed MacBeth when no one was around just to spite them―it’s just kind of the way the ghost light glows in the darkness that makes your skin crawl a bit whenever you see it._

_You make haste out of that theatre the second you’re sure it’s on, and lock up once you’re outside._

_The heat hits you like wet-towel slap in the face when you step outside. Late May isn’t the worst time of year, but right now it’s especially bad. You’re pretty close to being reduced to wearing just wifebeaters and shorts to school. It has to get a good ten degrees hotter for that to happen though. Still, it’s uncomfortable._

_John’s already halfway to the sidewalk by the time you’re done locking the doors. Instead of running to catch up with him, he waits for you by the exit of the school parking lot. The bus stop is just down the street._

_The bus comes a good seven minutes after you make it to the bus stop, and you and John find a seat in the back together. He lets you have the window since you were sitting in the aisle seat on the way to school. Because you’re leaving school so late, most of the people on the bus are adults, probably catching the bus home from work. Thus, you and John don’t begin rambling on about another one of your hot topics right away._

_Actually, you don’t talk at all. Rides home on the bus are rather quiet, because no one else aboard usually talks. Instead, since most of the time you have the window, you stare at the cars going in the opposite direction or watch the people walking down the street._

_The bus follows the same route your brother uses to get to work, which takes you right through the downtown area. This is where the ride gets pretty slow this time of day. You’re just a few blocks from where Bro works down at the record shop when you finally stop for a few minutes in the bumper to bumper traffic._

_Bro is one of their regulars, so they were happy to give him the job. They didn’t actually need an extra hand, but since Bro was on pretty good terms with the manager, he was given a part time job with fairly good pay for part time. It’s just until he finds something better somewhere else._

_You try to recall his hours as you sit in the god-awful heat for what feels like a millennium. He probably just left for work maybe thirty minutes ago, an hour tops. He’ll be home late, maybe eight or nine. Perhaps he’ll bring home dinner with him._

_You continue to let your mind wander as you stare at pedestrians making their way down the street, going wherever it is they are headed. You sit up and shift in your seat when your eyes fall on someone who you hadn’t realized until just a second ago has been standing in the same spot on the corner closest to you for as long as the bus had been stopped. You forget what you were thinking about as you get a good, long look at them._

_Except, it isn’t that long, because the second you actually notice them the bus lurches forward into motion and traffic begins to move again. You stare back at them as the bus turns, heading down a different street, and they disappear behind you._

_Tall and thin, pale skin, short blonde hair, and long blue shirt. Even through the shaded glass windows of the bus they stared directly at you like they knew you were right there sitting in that exact spot. Their eyes followed you as the bus came back to life and turned, leaving them behind in the heat and dust._

_The second they’re no longer in sight, you turn away from the window, and stare at the back of the seat in front of you, wide eyed and perhaps shaking a bit. Without thinking, you take John’s hand and squeeze it tight in yours._   
_John looks over at you and instantly notices you look terrified out of your mind. “Dude, Dave, what’s wrong?” He asks in a low voice. He’s so quiet that he has to move his mouth closer to your ear for you to hear him._

_“I saw him,” you say, unmoving. The only thing you do is hold his hand tighter. “As we were turning the corner. I saw Cal.”_

_At first he thinks you’re joking, but when you look up and over at him, the full view of your expression removes all doubts. He pulls you over so you’re sitting somewhat on both his seat and your own, and he holds you close for a second. You hate that this is happening in public._

_You aren’t crying, or going to. You aren’t going tremble against him. You just lay on him, too afraid to do anything or move at all and you aren’t sure why. It couldn’t have been Cal. Cal doesn’t exist. Cal is just a figment of your subconscious._

_The ride home doesn’t last much longer than that. John holds you all the way home anyway. You get off of the bus at the stop down the street from your building, and John says nothing as you walk down the street together, still holding hands. You’re just glad to be back with him after being locked up in your room for so long._

_He offers his fist for you to bump once you make it to your building, but instead you hug him. He doesn’t protest, and even hugs you back for a moment before he says his dad wants him home. You really would rather he come up to your apartment for a while, you even tell him you can do your homework together for once. He just shakes his head and tells you he’ll be online later. Then he turns and leaves. You watch him from the doorway of the lobby until he turns at the corner and disappears behind the building._

_You feel strangely empty as you stand alone in the elevator. You push the feelings away as you stare up blankly at the display above the doorway, telling you that you’re only on floor 13, and still climbing. The elevator is a piece of shit, and the florescent lights bother your eyes, even with your shades on._

_14..._

_15..._

_16..._

_Could this thing go any slower?_

_The choice of elevator music is pretty shitty. It’s pretty much just a looped album of old Frank Sinatra songs._

_It’s not like you can do anything about it though, so you just stand and listen._

_“And each time I do just the thought of you_

_Makes me stop just before I begin._

_'Cause I've got you under my skin._

_And I like you under my skin―_

_under my skin―_

_under my skin―_

_under my skin―”_

_You look up at the speaker, which is next to the monitor displaying floor number 17. The damn thing is probably broken._

_As you pass floor 18 the song just kind of deteriorates completely into scratchy distortion. It sounds as if the elevator is screeching out in pain as it’s being pulled upward, and there is scratching and the sounds of nails on chalkboards. The same line is still looping._

_You try to ignore it, telling yourself it’s another hallucination. Just like Cal. Thanks post traumatic stress disorder!_

_It’s when you start to lose your grip on gravity and the room suddenly just becomes darker that you feel something is wrong. The elevator is slowing down way too much when it still has a few floors before 21. The lights are flickering and the sounds inside the walls around you fills your ears. You sway on your feet and it feels like maybe you’re falling backward as you very slowly_

_extend your hand toward the buttons in a panicked attempt at stopping this_

_and you try to hit the emergency button_

_but you’re falling_

_bback away_

_the buttons are so far_

_at the other side of the room_

_other side of the uni_

_verse_

_youre falling_

_into the floor as the_

_elevator snaps on its cabl_

_e and every_

_thing gets_

_pulled do_

_wn into the black_

_pit_

_the sound_

_surrounding yo_

_u as you scre_

_am and_

_and_

_The elevator dings as the door opens and you arrive on floor 21, the music still coming quietly out the speaker and drifting around you, unchanged from the moment you stepped into the elevator in the lobby. You quickly exit the elevator and walk briskly down the hall to your door, not looking back as the doors close behind you._

_The music follows you until the moment the doors close, and then there is silence. You slam your front door as loud as you can once you’ve managed to get your key in the lock and open it._

_You don’t bother thinking about what just happened as you drop you backpack by the door then crash on the futon. Bro isn’t home of course, so you have the entire apartment until he gets off work. Which means a good few hours of solitude. Just the way you like it. As you lay supine on the futon, you peel off your sweat-drenched socks and fling them across the room, probably to land on some of Bro’s equipment._

_Ahh, the sweet relief of airing out your toes. You go ahead and sit up so you can strip yourself of your shirt too. Once you’ve had your fill of undressing and throwing your rancid clothes around the apartment, you get up and move to your bedroom._

_You have so much makeup work to do, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to do it. Instead, you sit on your bed which consists of two mattresses, after cracking your window, and think to yourself for a little bit. Your first day back at school didn’t go so badly. Maybe things are going back to normal. Maybe now you could get your mind off of these morbid thoughts and the nightmares will finally stop._

_Probably not, but you can always hope._

_It’s a lot hotter in your bedroom, even with the window open, so you get up to dig your fan out of your closet so you can get a breeze going on in here. As you’re pulling it out, a box of junk gets tipped over and your old camera falls out. You haven’t touched that thing since maybe last summer. The film is still undeveloped._

_It gives you something to do, so you set up a makeshift darkroom in your bathroom so you can develop these pictures. You can’t really remember what you took pictures of, so maybe this’ll be a major find._

_Once you’re done hanging up all your photos you open the door back to your bedroom so you can get some oxygen back into your lungs. Sometimes you really wish you had an actual darkroom because your bathroom has a filtration system with a solid -4 stars. You’re surprised you didn’t crawl out of the bathroom gagging and choking._

_There isn’t anything too exciting to report on the film. Some pretty swank shots of Houston at dawn, graffiti on the way to school, some crows that decided to nest in the little pile of garbage that’s been collecting on the rooftop under your window for some time now. You even got some pictures you barely remember taking of yourself laying on your mattresses giving the duckface. How old is this film again?_

_You throw those ones out._

_The only real treasures are the pictures you’d managed to snap of John or Bro when they weren’t looking. You’ve always had kind of a thing for the human body. Especially good looking ones. They are the only two people who are comfortable enough to walk around your house looking a little less than decent part of the time._

_You particularly like the little series of photos you’ve taken of John’s ass when he wasn’t aware you had your camera at the ready. You smirk down at them in your hand as you pull them off the line to put away. You’ve got a special place for all these._

_You’ve got a pretty ratty, old photo album stashed behind your mattresses up against the wall in which you keep all these pictures you’ve taken. You pull it out and add them in, then admire your handiwork for a minute. You give one of John’s asses a loving stroke before closing up the book and stuffing it back behind your bed. If he ever finds it you have a variety of excuses lined up at the ready for him._

_The smell of chemicals is leaking out of your bathroom now and filling this room too, so you go ahead and crank your fan to get some circulation going. You flop back down on your bed, then spend the rest of the afternoon staring at your ceiling with your hands tucked behind your head, thinking about things. You watch the shadows move across your room as the sun sets, and then the temperature falls. Finally, sweet relief._

_You don’t bother to get up and close your window or turn off your fan though, even when you hear Bro come home. You can hear the TV through the walls. He’s probably laying on the futon drinking. He did before the accident, but not as much as now._

_You turn over in your bed, listening through the wall. You’d really expected Bro to just go on like nothing had happened. You’d been exposed to the cool charade for so long that you’d begun to believe it._

_People who have to tell themselves to hide their emotions to be strong are the weakest._

_You really don’t want to deal with him at all right now, so instead of getting up to grab something laying around to eat, you just roll over in bed again and try to sleep off this confusion and disappointment._

_As you let your eyelids droop and your body slip into unconsciousness, you remember why you don’t sleep._

_its very dark_

_in the distance you see someone sitting_

_legs crossed over the ledge_

_swinging thei r foot in a rhythm you could easily keep_

_their finger taps in time_

_against their knee_

_over a line in th eir skin cut as_

_if their leg were severed with a_

_sword_

_stitched up along their thigh_

_they sit in pieces_

_sewn crookedly back toget_

_her_

_you draw closer and_

_they turn their_

_head aroudn_

_toward you_

_large teal eye_

_staring back at you_

_and the_

_air pricks your skin_

_your hair is ice yo_

_ur teeth click and chattter_

_they extend a hand_

_and severedd fingers beckon you_

_closer_

_closer_

_closerrr_

_the stitching in their chest com_

_es undo_

_ne_

_they stand before you_

_tall and cold_

_inside their ribcage is blackness and_

_shuffling whispering_

_swishing and bickering red eyes_

_stare at you from behind the_

_strings and talons and beaks claw at you as_

_crows scream and thrashh_

_he rips open_

_his chest and they_

_surrounnd you_

_exploding from their prison they screeech and shriek_

_and claw and peck and scratch_

_and drown you in thei_

_r wings_

_you_

_scream back tryi_

_ng to cover your face in yor_

_arms as_

_they eat you and_

_cawcaw_

_cawcwacaaw_

_cawcawcwacaawcwacaw_

_caanwadwacdawand_

_and_

_caawscreamcingaw_

_teal just_

_stares_

_at_

_you_

_and_

_**** _

_You wet the bed again._


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A crow over a house is a sign of imminent death within.
> 
>  
> 
> _"A crow on the thatch, soon death lifts the latch."_

_You wake up startled by a shrieking sound in your room. Your eyes fly open at the noise, and you look over at your window to see what the hell is screaming at you. Your window is still wide open from yesterday, and a single black crow is perched on your windowsill, staring at you. It caws loudly at you as it did before you woke up._

_You cover your ears. “Fucking―” you jump out of bed and run over to the window, trying to get it to get the hell out of your room. The crow hops around and barely makes it out your window before you slam it shut. You can still hear it squawking as it flies away._

_You let out a loud sigh as you press your forehead against the glass and your hands clutch your windowsill. Your heart is pounding inside your ribcage and you aren’t really sure why. Things just feel very, very wrong about today._

_Once you get up from leaning against the window, you walk over and turn off your fan before bundling up your sheets and running them across the apartment to the washing machine. Just another day in the life. Your life._

_As you walk back to your bedroom so you can get dressed, you hear a groan coming from down the hall. It must be Bro in his room. He must have been a lot drunker than usual, because he still isn’t out of bed yet. Either he’s still sleeping, or he’s suffering the infamous Strider hangover. You guys sure can hold your liquor, but the morning after is a whole other story. He’ll be up in maybe an hour._

_You go ahead and walk down the hallway to his room to check on him. The door has been left ajar as usual, so you peek through the doorway to see if you can catch a glimpse of him. He’s laying supine on his bed, on top of the ravaged sheets, with one hand over his eyes and forehead. You go ahead and let yourself in for a better look._

_He doesn’t move even though he can hear you come in. He just gives a low groan to let you know he’s still alive. You don’t usually go into his room, it’s pretty much trashed all the time, and he doesn’t like you in there. He’s never said this to you, but you know it bothers the fuck out of him._

_He’s got a ton of beer cans littered around his room on the floor and on his desk by his computer he’s never bothered to pick up. God the entire room just ranks of dirty laundry and alcohol. You don’t take more than a step inside the door, and resist the urge to pull your shirt up over your nose as you stare at him. His shirt is unbuttoned and his pants too. It looks like he tried to take off his clothes last night so he could go to bed but passed out before he could get out of them all the way._

_You look away from him for a second, feeling just a little bit bad about this whole situation, and look at the display he’s got above his bed for his katanas. You know they’re bolted in there pretty good, but you always kind of worried in the back of your mind that one day they might fall on him in his sleep. That’ll never happen though. Your bro is too swift to ever be killed by his own sword._

_“I’m guessing first day of work wasn’t really all that rad,” you say, finally speaking up._

_After a second he lifts his hand and head to look up at you, then moans a bit, flopping back down on his bed. He uses his same hand to rub his cheek and wake himself up._

_“What time is it, li’l man?”_

_“Seven thirteen,” you answer, without looking at a clock. He groans again in reply, and you turn to leave. “Aspirin’s on top of the fridge. I’ll be back around four. You better be up by the time you have to go to work.”_

_You return to your bedroom and get dressed into some fresh clothes. As you do, you wonder how long your lives are going to have to be like this. Obviously Bro is going to want to drink for a while, which can only mean eventually bad things. He tends to get pretty testy when he’s drunk, and the late nights and hangovers aren’t going to be helping his job performance or your money income._

_But hey, Bro could know what he’s doing. He’s smarter than he looks and you know that. He’s not going to do anything stupid on purpose, and you’re aware he’s trying fairly hard as it is. You really should just shut up and get ready for school. John is probably waiting for you right now._

_You’re digging your fingers into the box of poptarts left out on the counter in the kitchen when Bro walks in. He goes straight for the aspirin, then steals the poptart you’ve finally pulled out. He flash steps out of the room before you can yell at him or snatch it back._

_You manage to get out another and scarf it down as you leave, taking your camera with you. John is again waiting for you by the time you get down to the lobby, just like yesterday. You break him off a small piece of your breakfast but he refuses it. He hates sweet things._

_Once you’re on the bus together, he looks over and asks how Bro’s first day at work went._

_“Dunno. He didn’t say,” you reply as you fiddle with the camera in your lap._

_“Did it seem like it went well?”_

_You shake your head in reply and look out the window. You can see the sun just between two skyscrapers now that the bus has stopped for a moment. The sky is an amazing golden pink, and the clouds are little purple puffs with shinning yellow undersides. It looks like today is going to be beautiful. In the pit of your stomach you feel something very bad is about to happen. “He got drunk last night.”_

_You hear John take in a sharp breath of air. “He do anything?”_

_“When he was drunk? Nah, I was in my room. He just had the TV on in the front room.”_

_“You can always come to my house.”_

_“I’m fine.”_

_You really don’t think Bro would even be drunk enough to hurt you. Sure, sometimes the two of you fight or strife on the roof, but he’s not the kind of guy to intentionally try to hurt you. You doubt he’d try to pull anything else while he’s in that state. You’re not sure if John knows this. He’s slept over some nights when your parents were out and Bro was in charge. You don’t think John likes Bro very much when he’s drunk. Your brother can say some nasty shit when he’s not sober._

_John takes your hand then, and holds it tight. You look up at him, and find that he isn’t smiling like you thought he would be. He’s not smiling at all. He mouths something to himself then, something close to ‘I know’._

_You lean against his shoulder and pick up your camera again as it hangs from your neck. You take a picture of his and your fingers which are still held tightly intertwined._

_The rest of the ride to school is silent. When you get off the bus, you hug him tightly, for perhaps longer than you should have. Some kids who are also getting off give you strange looks, but you ignore them. They can go fuck themselves._

_John is the one to pull away. “I have to go to class,” he says._

_You give his hand, which you are still holding, a light squeeze before he slips from your fingers, then runs off to class. You watch him until he disappears into a building, and thus, you are late to class._

_During the beginning ten minutes of theatre production, when your teacher is still going over all the things the crews have to get done today in preparation for the musical, you stare out the window or down at your camera. You already know what you have to do, so you can get away with not paying attention. Your teacher’s voice is just the perfect tone to fall asleep to, and you have trouble not passing out right there. Maybe you should get more sleep. Oh right, you really shouldn’t._

_He dismisses you and the other crews to get working, so you jump up from one of the couches they let you sit on while in the greenroom, and go to get the keys to the catwalk. Sollux, who is the crew head for lights, has already beat you to it. By the time you can walk over to the key rack to get them, Sollux already has the keys in his hands, and is talking with his crew. You stand by and wait for him to finish so you can go up on the cat already._

_“Eridan, you’re in the booth. Take the new girl with you and show her how to use the board.” He turned to some of the others in the crew. “Fef, you and me are gonna be hanging some new fixtures. Everyone else, refocus the ones up there how Mr. S wants ‘em.”_

_“I don’t wanna work the booth again, you’ve got me in there all last week!”_

_“That’s because I don’t want you fucking around on the cat messing up plugs. Go to the booth, and don’t fuck up the cues.”_

_You find it kind of funny that Sollux signed up for lights crew head. Lighting crew is notoriously the loudest of the crews, and it’s kind of hilarious watching him trying to communicate with his crew with that lisp of his. It just makes trying to understand him as he’s yelling that much harder._

_The circle breaks, and everyone, besides Eridan and the new student in a blue beanie, follows Sollux up to the catwalk. You trail behind them with some mics from the cabinet under your arm. You’ve got a lot of work to do._

_Once everyone is up the ladder, they all go to do their jobs, and you go to the mid cat to hang some mics for the musical. As you’re plugging them in, you can hear Sollux and Eridan yelling to each other._

_“Turn up dimmer 13!”_

_“It’s already up!”_

_“Try 14 and 15!”_

_It’s not really a secret that lighting crew is also the angriest crew. They’re constantly yelling at each other, partially because their crew head and co-crew head can be major assholes sometimes, but also because they still haven’t worked out the walkie-talkie system. Thus, they kind of have to yell in order to hear each other._

_There’s so much commotion while you’re up hanging mics, you really just want to get this over with so you can return to the booth and do nothing. Getting this involved with lighting crew is not fun. They’re running by you all the time as you try to work, and they’re screaming at each other._   
_“Going dark!” Eridan yells from the booth._

_“Thank you dark,” everyone in lighting crew yells back._

_And then all the lights go out. This is another reason you hate lighting. You sit back on the cat and wait for the lights to come back up. Eridan must be setting new cues or something. It’s really uncomfortable sitting on the cat, especially on your knees, because of the expanded steel they use for you to stand on. Standing on it without shoes hurts like a bitch. Your knees are screaming with pain._

_Eventually, the lights come back on, and you finish hanging the mics over the mid cat. After, you go out to the proscenium cat, which hangs out over the edge of the stage and into the audience, to hang the last of them. This is where all the action is._

_The cat is a bit narrower here, so everyone has to step over you as you work. It’s not exactly a fun job for anyone afraid of heights, since you’re about thirty or so feet above the stage. Possibly forty. Everyone bumps into you as they pass, and every now and again someone will accidentally hit you with the fixture they’re carrying as they try to get past you. They all mumble a short ‘sorry’ before walking on. You know they’re not._

_The period can’t end soon enough, and when it does, you’ve still got two more mics to hang. Sollux hands you the keys to lock up as he leaves, and then the theatre is empty._

_Perfect._

_The house lights have been left off, so you work by the fixtures still left on. You know the basics of the light board, so you’ll turn them off yourself once you’re done. You decide not to hang the last two, and call it a day. You return to the green room and hang up the keys, then go to plug in the ghost light. After, you go to the booth and turn off those fixtures. You decide to wait in there for John in case he comes looking for you, which you know he will._

_As you wait, you take a seat in your usual office chair in front of the mixer and computer it’s hooked up to. You turn on the monitor and log into the teacher’s account. As you pull up your blog, which you haven’t touched in months, you notice the cover for the soundboard has been moved. You take it off and shove it aside, then check to see if anything has been touched. Someone has definitely been fucking with your dials. It could either be Eridan or that new girl._

_You go ahead and reset everything, then sit back and try to put back your settings from memory. Why couldn’t people just leave your stuff alone?_

_dave..._

_You look up from the board and around the booth. There is no one there. You go ahead and push yourself and the chair over to the light switch, and flip on the uglies. You squint as you look around again, then go back to the board._

_You glance back at the prime mixing system for a second to see if you had any mics patched yet, then go back to the board. You might as well patch the ones you just plugged in now._

_dave_

_You look up again, this time at the windows in front of you. They’re open. You stand up and lean over the counter to look into the house and see if anyone is down there trying to get your attention. It’s pretty much pitch black, so you narrow your eyes and try looking harder._

_“Dave.”_

_You jump a bit and spin around, only to find John there in the booth with you._

_He laughs. “Did I scare you?” He sits in the chair you were just in, and spins on it. “I was waiting for you down at the bus stop again. Figured you were in here when you didn’t show up.”_

_You relax a bit, then hop up onto the counter to sit facing him. “You caught me.” He smiles at you. “I’ve been hanging mics all period. Almost done, just gotta patch the last few.”_

_“You went up on the cat?” He asks._

_“Sure as hell did.”_

_He follows you over to the mixing system where you begin patching the mics to the soundboard. “Do you still have the key?”_

_“Nope, sorry,” you reply as you plug in the last one. “I still have a few more to do tomorrow, so I’ll take you up then.”_

_John looks pretty excited. “What’s it like?”_

_“Oh, it’s pretty terrifying.” You pick up your backpack, then turn off the mixers and lights. “I don’t know if you can handle it.”_

_He runs after you as you walk out. “I can handle it!”_

_You walk down to the bus stop together. All the way there he tries to convince you that he’s gotten over his fear of heights. There’s no way you believe him. The subject changes once you’re at the bus stop, and he brings up something he saw online the other day._

_“Dave, you ever think about what happens when people die?”_

_You look over at him, and shrug. “Sometimes.”_

_He shifts so his right leg is crossed over the other, and he rests his head in his hands as he stares at you. “You think your parents are in some kind of purgatory or heaven or something?”_

_“I don’t know.”_

_“I know, but they could be some other place, or they could be alive as some other being.”_

_You shrug again. “Could be.”_

_“Dave?”_

_You look over. “Yeah.”_

_“You okay?”_

_“Fine.”_

_“I mean, I don’t mean your parents selectively, but everyone. Ya know? Like, what does happen when you’re dead? I don’t mean just them.”_

_“I know.”_

_The bus pulls up then, and the two of you get on. He looks a bit nervous, like he’s worried he struck a nerve with you or something. He lets you have the window seat as usual, and you see him make sure to give you a bit of space when he sits down. It doesn’t mean his conversation with you has stopped._

_“So I read this thing,” he says, as the bus pulls away from the bus stop. “Apparently after we die, we still have seven minutes of brain activity. People have a theory that, during those seven minutes, you experience a kind of flashback through life and see everything you’ve done in life.”_

_You look back over at him. “The classic ‘my life flashed before my eyes’ theory?”_

_He sees your faint interest and instantly re-engages the conversation. “Yeah! Except, what if we aren’t just seeing ourselves living our life? What if the experience is us living out our life again, just being stuck on a grid where we can’t change anything in our past?”_

_You’re not that big about talking of death. It’s not that it brings bad memories of your parents, you just don’t feel all that engaged since there is no reasoning and no actual facts behind what happens when someone dies. And entire argument of it would just be based solely on belief and religion. Which you’d rather not get into._

_“Which would mean...?”_

_John shifts in his seat. Outside the bus, cars are on every side of you now. You’re going through the middle of downtown again, and traffic is slow as usual._

_“What if we’re not actually living right now? We could be dead, and just experiencing our life through the last seven minutes of brain function left in us. Since in our subconscious, we can see thousands of things in seconds without realizing it, we could just be thinking we’re alive when really we’re dying. How do we know we aren’t dead right now?”_

_You stare at him for a bit. You don’t want to think about either of you dying. “Would it matter?”_

_He sits back a bit, hearing what you said. He takes a minute to let it sink in. “Well, I guess not, but if we’re dead, then we’d be forced into a grid. We’d have to do everything just as we had done when we were alive. Would we realize that? Or would we not know and just follow it because the universe forces us to without knowing?”_

_You smirk. “Well, do you know if you’re following a grid right now?”_

_“No.”_

_“Then you’re either still alive, or you don’t know you’re dead.”_

_He has nothing to say to that other than, “We could both be dead.”_

_“Perhaps on the inside.” You look out the window, “Let’s just save this chat for pesterchum, okay?”_

_“Sure.”_

_You stare at the cars beside you as you crawl through downtown. People pass down the sidewalk just as they did the day before and the day before that. As you near the intersection, you get a strange feeling in your stomach. This is the same place as yesterday. This is where you saw him._

_You take John’s hand without looking back at him, and he asks you what’s wrong. You close your eyes before the street corner comes into view, and when the bus stops, you reluctantly open them. Waiting on the corner is an old woman and a tall man in a suit. They’re waiting to cross the street._

_The light turns, and they cross along with some other people crossing in the opposite direction. They pass in front of the bus, and out of sight. That guy from the day before is not there. He is nowhere in sight._

_Your grip on John’s hand only tightens. You don’t understand. You felt like he was there. You felt in your chest that he was going to be there staring at you again. You felt his presence inside yourself._

_“Dave,” he whispers._

_“I don’t like this.”_

_“Should we get off at the next stop?”_

_“No. It’s fine.”_

_You stay on the bus until you get to your stop. You and John both get off, then walk together to your building. John gives you an awkward pat on the back and tells you he’ll see you tomorrow, then he leaves. You kind of want to chase after him, but there’s no way it’d help anything. Instead, you turn toward your building, and stare up at its entirety for a good few moments._

_Cars honks and speed past behind you, crows circle overhead, and the sun glares down at you from just above the building. It’s so hot that the sidewalk is steaming. You can kind of see the higher floors, but you can’t make out your window. You’re actually pretty sure you’re room is on the west side of the building, so you wouldn’t see it anyway. You continue to stare up regardless. Something doesn’t feel right._

_You walk inside and the air conditioning in the lobby gives you instant relief. You’re about to take the elevator up to your apartment, but there’s an out of order sign on the front of it when you get there. You take the stairs._

_You’re actually kind of glad that you don’t have to go in that deathtrap now, plus you could use the exercise. After a week of having to use the stairs and you’ll probably have some really sexy legs._

_You get out and walk down the hall to your apartment. As you’re digging your key out of your pocket, you hear something inside. You look up at the door as you pull the key out, and just as you stick it in the lock, the door swings open. Bro is standing there, looking like he’s about to leave._   
_“...Hey li’l man.” He says staring down at you._   
_You shift on your feet awkwardly. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work right now?”_

_He kind of laughs, then goes back inside like he’s changed his mind about leaving. “Called in sick. Kind of a funny thing happened on the way to work this morning.” You see him go over to the kitchen area as you walk in and set down your bag on the futon._

_“Funny how?” You ask, not liking this._

_He turns back around to you. “We still got those old disinfectant wipes?”_

_“Why the fuck do you need disinfectant wipes?” You ask, but he just turns away and continues shifting through all the crap you got in your cabinets._

_“I kinda... hit someone with our car.”_

_You stand there, unmoving, as he continues to look for the wipes like it’s no big deal. “Did you kill them!” You eventually ask._

_He finds the wipes, then stands, looking them over. “Don’t worry, li’l dude, they’re fine.” He then goes into the hallway to his bedroom. You follow him. “Just got scraped up is all. Okay, this is gonna sting...”_

_“Fine,” you hear a different voice say as you turn to walk into Bro’s room._

_Sitting on Bro’s bed without any pants on is a tall, blonde boy with scrapes up his legs and arms, and some bloody tissue sticking out of his nose. All he has on is a pair of orange boxers, and a blue shirt with the letters CAL in white on the front. He looks like he’s maybe eighteen years old. He’s staring down at Bro, then looks up at you, and you stare at each other for a good minute. You are completely paralyzed._

_Your mind flashes with images from your nightmare. The naked boy with the paper bag. The guy on the street corner. The screaming laughter and the crows and all those horrifying images just come flooding back into your mind. He’s here in front of you, sitting on your brother’s bed. This is him._

_“Li’l fucker ran right out in front of my car,” Bro says, wiping some blood from the boy’s leg._

_You and the kid have nothing to say. As Bro moves up to get his arm too, the guy narrows his eyes at you. He’s glaring at you._

_“His name’s―”_   _He cuts off your brother before he can finish._

_“Cal.”_


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which John Egbert almost touches Dave's butt.

_You can hear them chatting from your bedroom. Even with the door closed, somehow their voices make it to your ears. Bro is laughing. They’re really hitting it off._

_You know what this means._

_Bro hasn’t had anyone to talk to in a long time. He had some friends back in high school, but they all grew up, got married, and moved away. Since your parents died, you haven’t seen him talking to much of anyone. You’d kind of hoped he’d find some kind of companion so he wouldn’t just sit on the futon all day playing Xbox until he had to go to work, but you never wanted it to be like this._

_This was bad. This was very bad._

_At around five, you get tired of listening to them, so you go up to the roof. Up there the wind is loud and so is the city, and all other noise is drowned out. You sit on the ledge, not caring about the height, and stare out at the sun as it slowly falls behind the buildings in the distance. Your shades protect most of the sun’s glare, but you also have to squint._

_It’s a really nice sunset. The sky is lit up red and blue and the clouds rolling in are dark with golden linings as the sun slips behind them and then out from under them._

_Back before you had to move into this apartment, you’d sometimes watch the sunset from your kitchen window out where there were a lot less high rises and skyscrapers. You think you might still have some old photos of your house lying around somewhere. You kind of hate to admit it, but sitting there with your blank expression, watching as the windows and buildings around you light up orange and white, as Bro gets friendly with your nightmares... you kind of miss the life you had._

_John lived a lot farther away back then, but you saw him on weekends. You remember having actual dinner every once in awhile even if your parents weren’t home to eat it with you. Back when you and Bro were best friends and he didn’t need anyone else. Back before the nightmares and Cal. Yeah, those were good times. Those were the best days of your life and you didn’t even know it._

_Eventually, the sun sets, and the city begins to glow. Down below you, street lights light up, and as you’re looking down, you see Bro’s truck leave down the street._

_He left._

_You go back downstairs then to your apartment and check just in case to see if he’s there. Both Bro and Cal are gone. You don’t know when Bro is coming back, if he’s coming back at all. That’s fine. You don’t need him. You don’t need anyone._

_You go to the kitchen and drink some milk from the carton, then take a piss in Bro’s shower. That’ll show him. That’s what he gets for involving himself with that guy._

_After thirty minutes of laying on the futon with only some boxers on, you begin to worry if Bro is actually not coming back. Where is he, anyway? Where could he possibly go with that guy? Maybe Cal murdered and bagged him, threw him in the trunk, then drove off with your bro and your bro’s car._

_The longer you lie there, the more demented and horrific situations your mind comes up with. You’re actually close to calling the cops when Bro walks back in with a bag of takeout. He leaves it on the counter in the kitchen._

_“Why the fuck are you naked on my couch?” he asks, walking over. He lifts you up and dumps you on the floor in front of the TV, then takes your place on the futon. “Put a fucking shirt on, ya little shit.”_

_You stand up. “Where’d you go?” You demand. He kind of gestures you to get out of the way because he can’t see the TV. You don’t budge._

_He picks up his Xbox controller. “I was droppin’ Cal off, now get your ass out of the way.”_

_You do so, and plop down next to him. “Dropping him off where?”_

_He doesn’t even glance over at you, and just pulls up the game menu for whatever he’s left in the console. “Across the street from the CMIL, now fuck off I’m gamin’.”_

_You pick up the other controller and join in. He can’t get rid of you now._

_“The hospital?” You ask. “He a patient there or something?”_

_“Does it look like he was wearing their uniform?” He doesn’t sound pissed, just distracted. “He was kind of cute, actually.”_

_“He looks like he’s my age.”_

_Bro glances over at you, then back at the screen. “He’s twenty.”_

_How long were they talking? What else did Bro know about him? “Sounds like you two got to know each other real well. Looks like all you had to do to make friends was run someone over.”_

_“He ain’t callin’ the cops or anything, what’s the big deal? Why don’t you like him? You didn’t say one word to ‘im.”_

_You don’t want to tell him about your Cal nightmares. You don’t want him to think you’re going crazy or something. You don’t want him to know you’re probably just losing your cool and freaking out because you’re worried about some guy he just met._

_“Why do you like him?”_

_Bro shrugs. “Good looking, kinda shy, sweet ass. What’s not to like?”_

_No. Hell no. Hell fucking no._

_You put your controller back down on the coffee table then walk away._

_“What the hell is your problem?” Bro calls after you as you run to your bedroom._

_You close the door behind you and go to your bed where your iPhone should be. You need to talk to John right now. You bring up his number and call him, and as you sit and wait for him to pick up, you think about what your brother just said. There’s no way around it. Your brother is digging on Cal._

_“Hey! This is John. Sorry, but can’t get to the phone right now, so just leave a message or something. Later!”_

_You groan, then hang up. John never answers his phone. You’ll just have to talk to him tomorrow on the bus._

_You sit in your room for a bit, being stubborn and angry, until you have to go back out and get something to eat. You’re pissed at Bro, yeah, pissed enough to ignore him the rest of the night, but your stomach sure isn’t. Oh man and that takeout smelled so good when he walked in._

_You sneak down the hall and peek over at the futon from behind the corner. He’s still sitting there, munching away at a taco as he plays one handed. You look over at the counter in the kitchen. The bag is gone. He must have it next to him._

_You decide to give up and go back to your room. Maybe you still have that old, moldy bagel in your closet. You can always feast on that._

_You’re about to go, but your stomach makes an obscene gurgling noise that you hope only you can hear, but Bro pauses his game and looks over. Busted._

_You stare each other down for a good sixty seconds before he makes the lamest attempt at a gesture for you to come back over. Your mind is too occupied with the thought of food to listen to you. Bro makes no change in his expression when you sit down, and just pushes the bag of Taco Bell in your direction. Your hand is in it a second later, trying to dig out something good._

_Doritos Locos Tacos Supreme. Not bad. Your self-pride was worth it you think._

_“Don’t think you’re buying my affection with this Taco Bell goodness,” you say to Bro, just in case that wasn’t clear._

_“Whatever.” He just continues eating._

_You sit there on the futon finishing off the rest of the grub together. As he unpauses his game, you lick the dorito dust from your fingers, then lean up against him. He snickers._

_“I hate you,” you say._

_“Yeah, yeah. You just hate that I brought him home.”_

_“I hate both of you.”_

_“You love me.”_

_“Shut up.”_

_Again with the snickering._

_You get up, your self-worth coming back, and leave. This time you plan on ignoring him for good. Unless you get hungry again. Hey, guys gotta eat, Striders gotta stride. You stop halfway down the hall, then return to the front room._

_“Don’t ever bring him back, ya hear?” Your work here is complete. You can now return to your room feeling all that can be done has been._

_It’s getting late now. You stare out your window for a bit, the light breeze blowing your bangs up. There are no stars in the dark sky. The glowing city makes sure of that. There aren’t any stars for miles._

_You pull your head back inside your room and sit at your desk, tapping the top with your finger. You’re not even slightly tired. Which is for the best. You decide to do something productive, and turn on your computer. Pesterchum pops up. Only Rose is online. Do you wish to explain to her the most recent events in your pathetic existence?_

_Sure. Why not._

_Wait, she’s already messaged you._

_**** _

__

_**** _

_You actually aren’t in the mood._

_**** _

__

_**** _

_Her response comes a minute later._

_**** _

__

_**** _

_You pause and stop typing._

_**** _

__

_**** _

_It isn’t._

_**** _

__

_**** _

_You exit out of the chat. Getting on the computer was a bad idea. Instead of getting off, you hop on the internet and check out how your comic is doing. You haven’t updated it since the accident. It appears you have email. Probably some diehard fan cussing you out for not updating. You could use a good laugh right now. You go ahead and click on it._

_It’s from John. A few days before the accident._

 

_Bro was out that Saturday. He told your parents he was going out for a job interview in the dusty cesspool town you lived in. He was going out to get wasted. Back then it was still just a weekly thing._

_It’s not like if Bro had driven you and John back to his place in the city it would have made a difference. Maybe it’s better that your parents were driving. Bro’s probably the only other person you’d feel hopeless without. He keeps you sane._

_At some point after closing your email tag, you crawled into bed, and fell asleep._

_you feel like youre floating_

_like_

_there is just heavy matter_

_all around you_

_keeping you up_

_up above you_

_there is a_

_golden light_

_its beautiful_

_something slips down an dbrushes your face_

_its so soft_

_theres another_

_its a feather_

_golden feathers_

_are falling down upon you_

_caressing your skin_

_this is_

_nice_

_you cl ose your eyes_

_there is a codlness_

_all aroun_

_dyou_

_you onpen your eyes_

_cal iss upon yo_

_u he has golden feathhers_

_all rouand himn_

_his wings surrou nd you_

_hee cackcles s_

_he sc_

_reaches_

_adn claw extends_

_he slllits your thoroat_

_red_

_blood_

_staining your clothess_

_a red suit of_

_bblood_

_youre chokin g_

_and hsis tongue extends from underr_

_the b_

_ag and he llickss the blodd of your n_

_eck cacklingg scr eaching_

_caaa caa_

_w_

_cawa_

_haaw caww_

_hawwaa_

_haa haaaw_

_haa_

_haa_

_haa_

_haa_

_caw_

_**** _

_When you wake, the first thing you see is your ceiling above you and your bed next to you. You are lying on the floor. At least you didn’t wet the bed this time._

_You get up and go into your bathroom._ There are scratches on your neck. _You look at them more closely, and run your fingers over them. You have absolutely no idea how they got there._

_A noise comes from the other room, and you leave the bathroom to get ready for school. As you do, Bro walks by your room and goes out to the kitchen. When you come out, he’s at the counter in his boxers trying to make himself some breakfast._

_You walk over and get down the nearly empty box of poptarts for yourself. He’s busy trying to combine all the leftovers in the apartment into some breakfast._

_“We got any left?” He asks, talking about the box of poptarts._

_You take out the last one and bite into it. “Nope.”_

_He glances over for a second, then smacks it out of your hand and grabs it, shoving the rest in his mouth._   
_“Bro, you fuck!” You yell, grabbing for it as he finishes it off. “Get your own fucking breakfast!”_

_“Mmm delicious,” he replies, not even trying to push you off._

_You back off once he’s swallowed and give him the sharpest glare you can muster. He just grins back stupidly._

_“Go put a fucking shirt on...” You say, turning back to the counter to find something else to eat. “Before you poke my eye out.”_

_He grabs hold of you and hugs you tight, pressing you against his bare chest. “Aww, Dave wants a hug.”_

_“Get the fuck off of me!”_

_He gets you in a headlock and rubs your head with his fist. You get a noseful of his rank underarms. This is practically child abuse._

_Eventually, you squirm your way out of his grip, and punch him in the side before running away to get your backpack. Your brother is a big pile of shit. You hate that you love him._

_He’s still laughing like mad when you pass through the front room to leave for school. Asshole._

_John is waiting for you in the lobby by the time you get down there. You walk to the bus stop together._

_“Called you last night,” you say, starting the conversation._

_He looks over, “I lost my phone somewhere in my room.”_

_You don’t sit at the bus stop when you get there, but John stands on the edge of the curb, seeing if he can keep his balance as you talk. “Where the hell could you lose it there’s like four things in your room.”_

_He steps off for a second, then hops back on. “Yeah, Dave, exactly four things in my room. I don’t know, maybe it’s under my bed, or my computer, or that shirt on my floor, or my trunk. I’m pretty sure I looked under all of those.” He gives you that dumbass, biting-his-lower-lip smile. Someone’s ripe with sarcasm today. “Why’d you call?”_

_“Bro hit someone with the car yesterday.”_

_He stops hopping on and off the curb, and stands still for a second. “What happened?”_

_You pull out your wallet as the bus rolls up and take out your punch card. “Well, Bro and the car are okay. And unfortunately, so is the fuck he ran over.”_

_You both get on the bus and pay, then find some empty seats near the back together. Once the bus is moving again, John turns to you and asks, “So, Bro’s not in any trouble then?”_

_You scoff. “No, not legally, but dude, he brought the guy home. Instead of just helping him up and going to his job, he took him home.”_

_“Okay...? Why?”_

_“Because he got scraped up or something. But Egbert, I came home, and Bro was still there, and so was the dude he hit with the car. And the guy who he hit was Cal.”_

_John is silent for second, then says, “Are you serious?”_

_“It was that same fucking guy I saw standing on the corner two days ago. His name was even Cal. It said it on his shirt.”_

_John bites his lip again, but he isn’t smiling. “Did he say anything? What did he do?”_

_You sit back in your seat and stare at the one in front of you. “All he said was his name. Later he and Bro were talking and hitting it off in the other room. I ollied the fuck out of there and chilled on the roof until they left.”_

_“They left? Together?”_

_“Bro was taking him back to wherever it was he found him.”_

_John sat back against the seat too, his shoulder against yours. “At least he’s gone.”_

_“I think Bro likes him,” you state._

_John looks over at you again. “Like, likes him likes him? Or―”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Shit.”John sighs a bit and looks around. He also knows what this means. “Maybe this’ll be the end of it.”_

_“Doubt it,” you reply. “When Bro likes someone, he goes after them. And he always gets what he wants.”_

_John looks over at you, a bit concerned. “Dude, there’s no way it can be the Cal from your nightmares. You didn’t even know him back when they started.”_

_You think back to when they started. The night after that crash. The whole event is kind of fuzzy in your mind, since you never let yourself think about it. The memory has been worn down overtime._

_You remember that Saturday was your birthday, and you were driving down the highway... holding John’s hand... looking out the window... driving down Lockhart... and then nothing._

_“Come on.”_

_You look up. John has gotten up. The bus has stopped in front of the school already. You stand as well and get off with him. Once you’re in front of the school, he waves goodbye and leaves you. You wonder, as he walks off, if he really believes you. Anyone else probably wouldn’t. You don’t even think Rose believes you. She’s probably just humoring you for the sake of being polite. You guess its better than her just telling you straight up that she thinks you’re insane._

_You don’t actually care if Rose thinks you’re crazy. You don’t care if anyone does. Except John. You actually really care about what he thinks of you._

_The bell rings, and you run to get to your class in time._

_During theatre production, Mr. S has you download some new songs for the dance class’ next performance. You have to cut and edit the songs so that each is three minutes exactly, and it ends up taking you the entire period. Looks like John’s going to have to wait until tomorrow to go up on the cat._

_But, working did manage to take your mind off of Cal and Bro. It managed to take your mind off pretty much everything. As you sit in the booth with your earbuds in, listening again to one of the songs you just finished editing, you don’t even notice the bell ring._

_Beyond your earbuds you hear a faint shuffling noise. You take them out, but decide to not look around. The shuffling is gone._

_You get up and stick your head out the window. Everyone left and you hadn’t noticed until now. The theatre is completely dark outside the booth except for the ghost light on stage._

_The shuffling is back._

_You turn around and glance around the booth, anxiously. Some cables hanging from their hooks are swinging back and forth. You take a few cautious steps toward them, and you hear outside the booth that the ghost light has gone out with a faint hush._

_Darkness._

_The darkness creeps into the booth_

_it hangs like a dead thing in the air_

_and circles_

_like mist it creeps_

_over your feet_

_under you clothes_

_under your skin_

_it caresses your cheek and you_

_close your eyes_

_and the shuffligng_

_something in the corner moves_

_something behind you scurries_

_in the darkness_

_the air is thickk_

_and foul an_

_and your breath is sharp againstt_

_this_

_dark_

_hand_

_shuffling is_

_all around you_

_cllosing in_

_in the dark you se_

_ee the doorrway far_

_away beiing swallo_

_owed up and_

_you reach for the dorr_

_but hte dark hands_

_and the shuffingg things_

_you rip_

_and tear your way_

_trhough them_

_towward the door_

_and grab the handle and pull_

_it up and_

_John is standing there outside the door about to open it when you do. You’ve never been so happy to see him in your life._

_He’s about to ask why you’re out of breath and look terrified, but you hug him tight before he can get anything out. He hugs you back._

_You cling to him desperately, your whole body shaking, and you just need to be close to him. You need him to save you._

_Without thinking, you pull away just enough to kiss him on the mouth. At first he’s shocked, and almost pushes away, but then he softens, and even kisses you back._

_You’re kissing John Egbert. You’re kissing your best friend, John Egbert, and he’s kissing you back. By now, he’s even got his hand dangerously close to your butt._

_Reluctantly, you pull away from him._

_The two of you stare at each other for a second, then he looks down and scratches the back of his neck. He’s smiling._

_You leave him for just a moment to grab your backpack, then dash out of the theatre with him after shutting off all the lights. The ghostlight is still on, onstage. As you run to the bus stop, you hold hands. You hold hands all the way home._

_Once you get off the bus, you walk together to your building. You haven’t even exchanged a word yet, but for some reason, you don’t need to. You just kind of understand each other without articulating anything._

_Before he leaves you, he gives you a quick peck on the lips, then disappears behind the corner. Once he’s gone, you allow yourself to smile a bit. It’s your first real smile in a long time._

_You hurry up to your apartment to get online and tell Rose the good news, but you can’t run up the stairs fast enough. Once you get to your floor, you dash to your door, shove your key in the lock, and twist._

_What you see when you open the door is not what you expected._

_All of the previous joy from those kisses is now gone._

_You stand there in the doorway, unmoving, staring at your brother and Cal kissing on the futon. They don’t stop until you slam the door behind you._


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Rivers to the sea, rivers to the sea_   
>  _How it is right now is how it's always gonna be_   
>  _It's here then it's gone_   
>  _Love doesn't last too long"_
> 
>  
> 
> -The Weepies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is for my brother

_You drop your backpack and scowl at Bro. “I thought I told you to never bring him back here,” you spit._

_He shakes his head, like he doesn’t want to deal with you. “Dave, go to your room or something.”_

_You’re seething now. “Bro, I want him fucking gone―”_

_“Go to your room!” He repeats, raising his voice._

_“You can’t make me go to my room! You’re not my mom!”_

_He gets up. He’s got a beer can in his hand. Suddenly, your room doesn’t sound like a bad idea. You run for it, but he follows you._   
_“Dave!”_

_You try to slam your door, but he wedges his foot in first and stops you before you can get away. Now he’s got you cornered._

_“What the fuck is the big deal,” he asks, taking a step toward you._

_You take one back. “I told you not to bring him back here, why the fuck are you parked on the couch, making out with him?”_

_“Because I fucking like him, that’s why. When you’re attracted to someone, you make out with them, Dave. Didn’t you pay attention in sex ed?”_

_You clench your fists. You want to scream and lunge at him and just beat the living hell out of him. Doesn’t he realize what he’s doing? Doesn’t he realize how bad he’s hurting you?_

_“Why aren’t you at work?” You ask, trying to make yourself sound calm, but you can’t hide it._

_He looks like he wasn’t expecting that question. “...I called in sick.”_

_“Why?” You demand. “So you can play hookie with your boyfriend?”_

_He gives you a hard stare. “The pay there is shitty anyway, I’ll go out and find a better job with different hours.”_

_“That fucking job pays for my apple juice, Bro! We can’t just live off Mom and Dad’s life insurance!”_

_“I fucking know, okay! I just need this, let me have this one fucking thing!”_

_The two of you are silent for a minute._

_You know he’s right, and you know you’re also right, but you’re too angry to come to a compromise. “Why do you need him. You have me.”_

_“I’m not gonna sit ‘n my ass and cry over our parents my whole life, li'l man, I need someone else. He makes me happy, why can’t ya just accept that. Ya don’t even know him.”_

_“You’ve known him for a day.”_

_Bro shakes his head. “Knew you wouldn’t understand...”_

_“Wouldn’t understand what? That you hit some guy with a car and now you’re in love with him?”_

_“Its how I want to deal with this, Dave. I don’t care if ya don’t like him, I’m happy. For once in my fucking life, I’m happy.”_

_You know Bro is really lonely. He always has been. Moving around a lot before you were born, having only older friends, he never even dated. It was kind of his fault, since he would never open up to anyone. No one but you. Until now._

_When he’d go out on weekends, leaving you alone by yourself, you knew he wasn’t going out to meet new friends. When he went out, he was only trying to satisfy himself in the moment. He’d go bar hopping, or find a nice fuck in some club and do him behind the building._

_Every night when he was out, you’d lay awake in bed, hoping he’d come home before you fell asleep. You wished for once he’d just stay home with you. You wished that you could satisfy his need for love and attention that Mom and Dad never gave. You wished your love was enough._

_And because he wanted it so bad from anyone but you, you in turn became just like him._

_You would die just to hear him say he loves you._

_He’s all you have._

_“I hate him.”_

_He’s visibly angry now, and takes another few steps toward you; you take the same number back._

_“I don’t want to fucking hear it. Shut the fuck up, and stay here until I take him home.”_

_You’re getting a little scared now, since he keeps advancing. “Because you love him more than me!”_

_He’s got you against the wall now. He raises his hand like he’s gonna hit you, and you start yelling at him to stop. Instead he grabs your arms and shakes you angrily, yelling back. Yelling about how you’re such an ungrateful little shit. Yelling about how you don’t even feel love._

_Terrified for your life, you manage to break free from him, and you fall on your bed. You throw up your arms to defend yourself, and you scream at him._

_“I love John! I’m fucking in love with John!”_

_Suddenly, he stops. He just stops, and stares down at you, like you struck him dead or something. His expression softens, and he rubs his face with one hand. He’s upset. He’s shaking like he might even cry._

_“I know, Dave,” he says, voice faint. “I know you do.” He shakes his head, and regains his composure. “I’m sorry. I’m just...” He sighs. “Everythin’s just real fucked up right now. I just need this.”_

_“Dane.” Another voice comes from your doorway. You and Bro both look over. It’s Cal. He calls Bro by his first name._

_Bro looks down at you, then walks over to him. You hear him whispering in a soft voice, “Sorry, he’s just bein’ a teenager.”_

_Cal glares over at you as he slips an arm around Bro’s neck. “Should I leave?”_

_Bro glances back at you. “Yeah. I’ll drive you.”_

_Then they’re gone._

_You get in bed. Bro is dating Cal. Your life is over._

_You lay in bed for what feels like an eternity. You don’t want to sleep, but you’re so tired. You begin to fade in and out by the time Bro returns, and he comes into your bedroom again as your eyes close. He brushes your bangs out of your eyes and whispers he’s sorry before leaving._

_You wish he would have stayed. You’d feel much better knowing he was there next to you._

_But instead you just lay in the darkness alone_

_your body is_

_warm_

_youre standing in the middle of_

_dark nothing_

_in a void_

_you look down at yourself to find_

_youre dressed in greeen_

_a green suit_

_suddenly there is something on your_

_shoulder something colld and_

_unpleasant_

_a gloved hand ghosts_

_over your neckk_

_a and you haer the crinkkling_

_bag and_

_eeye behidn you_

_green slevvees wrap around your chest_

_and fingernaisl dig into your neck_

_there is hot bolood on yoru chest_

_red_

_red_

_blood_

_he digs his nails into uyour neck_

_and presseds against you_

_green suits on green suuit_

_and you shvier nand trembkle_

_he tilts your heasd to one  soide_

_aand tonuge_

_fromt under the ba_

_g licks up your nenck_

_and yurou scream_

_out but_

_you only_

_sp_

_itt up_

_blood_

_**** _

_In the morning, as you’re sneaking out of the pantry back to your room, you run into Bro. He looks like shit._

_“Hey,” he says._

_For a second, you’re afraid he’s going to ask why you just took all your sheets to the wash, but a second later he hugs you._

_“I’m sorry ‘bout last night.” He puts a hand on the back of your head and pets your hair._

_It’s rare for Bro to apologize, and even rarer for him to hug you. You wrap your own arms around him and hug him back._

_“Why him?” you ask into his chest. “Why can’t it just be me and you like way back when.”_

_His grip softens. “Things can’t ever be like back then.”_

_You pull away from him. The hug was nice, it really was, but you can’t be around him right now. You need to get ready for school._

_As you return to your room to put on your clothes, you hear Bro groan from the hallway. You know he’s trying really hard to be a good older brother._

_He is. Most of the time._

_John is waiting for you by the time you get down to the lobby. He doesn’t say anything, and just takes your hand. You walk to the bus stop in silence. When you get on, everyone stares, as usual. You both ignore them, and find two empty seats in the back._

_“Bro brought Cal over again,” you tell him._

_John looks over at you, concerned. “After work?”_

_You hold his hand a little tighter. “He didn’t go to work. I just came home, and they were parked on the couch, sucking face.”_

_John sits back a bit, and you’re both quiet for a minute. Every now and again, John glances out the window. “Do you know anything about that guy? Where he lives, family, anything?”_

_“Bro said he dropped him off at the hospital that day they met.”_

_John looks at you. “Which hospital?”_

_“The one we drive by on the way to school.”_

_“Point it out for me,” He says._

_You sit together silently as you wait for the bus to drive by it. It’s on the other side, so he’s looking past you._

_“There.” You point across the aisle of seats at the white building as you pass it. For a split second, you see something in the window._

_Just a flash. Of someone with a bag over their head. Looking back at you._

_You move closer to John, and squeeze his hand tight in yours. After a second, it’s gone, and you can relax a little. Just a hallucination._

_“Maybe Cal’s one of those guys who... I don’t know, pretends to be hurt, or hungry, or something, so they you’ll take him home. He gets all attached to you, but he’s really a serial killer.”_

_You look over at him. “You think Cal is gonna kill my bro?”_

_He shrugs. “I think it’s kinda weird that your bro hit him with a car, and now they’re together.”_

_“I don’t know if they’re together... I just know that Bro fuckin’ wants them to be.”_

_“Dave.”_

_You look over at him._

_“What happened after that?”_

_You shake your head, then lean against him. You don’t feel like talking about it anymore._

_In theatre production, you remember to grab the key before Sollux can get to it. Then, you spend the rest of the period in the booth, waiting for school to be over so you can take John up onto the cat to hang the rest of those mics._

_Eventually, school lets out, and you’re left alone in the theatre. It’s Friday, so maybe after you and John are done jerking around on the cat, you can convince him to spend the night at your apartment. You think if anyone could help the nightmares, it’s him._

_He doesn’t show up right away like you’d hoped he would, so to keep yourself from getting bored, you spin the ring of keys on your finger as you stare at the wall clock. It’s been ten minutes now._

_You get up, and decide to stretch your legs. You won’t leave the theatre, so John will still be able to find you, but you do walk out of the booth into the house. Most of the lights are out. Just the scoops on stage and the ghost light illuminate the theatre. The scoops are pretty bright, so you go ahead and crawl up onto the stage to stare up at them. Sometimes they flicker. They’re pretty old. It’s about time Mr. S had them replaced too._

_As you gander, you hear something out in the theatre. You look away to check out what it was, but the scoops have been burned into your eyes and it’s hard to see beyond them into the darkness. After a minute, they fade. The house is still pretty hard to make out when you’re standing in this pool of light._

_There’s another noise. Like a closing door. This time, from somewhere offstage behind you. You turn and look. Again, nothing._

_The next time you hear something, you turn and find it’s just John._

_“Hey,” he says. “You okay?”_

_You guess you look a little frayed. “Yeah, man.”_

_He walks up to the stage and then climbs on. “Do you have the key?” He asks, giving you a big, toothy smile._   
_You take the ring out of your pocket and toss it to him, which he catches. He smiles a bit wider, then grabs your hand, and pulls you into the greenroom. He goes straight for the catwalk entrance and unlocks the door. The two of you step inside._

_He stares up at the huge ladder bolted to the wall. You gesture to it._

_“Ladies first.”_

_He swallows a bit, then begins climbing._

_“It’s not so bad if you don’t look down,” you say, waiting for him to get to the top before you start climbing. Of course, hearing this, he looks down and freezes. After a second, he recovers, then continues climbing._

_Once you join him at the top he tells you, “That was the scariest moment of my life.”_

_“Good,” you reply, unlocking the second door. You push it open. “Then the cat will be a piece of cake.”_

_You go ahead and walk out onto it, then start heading for the proscenium so you can finish hanging those mics. John has yet to move from the doorway. He’s just standing there, looking down at the stage through the expanded steel, shaking. You walk back over to get him._

_“If you’re scared, we can go back down.”_

_He looks up at you, then shakes his head. “No way.” He then takes a step out, then another. He makes a quick dash over to you, latches onto your arm, and refuses to let you go. Perfect._

_You take him to the proscenium cat, where he continues to freak out. You get down on your knees and start plugging in the mics again, while he clings to a pole._

_“Enjoying the cat, Egbert?” You ask, glancing over at him._

_He’s staring down. “Yeah... piece of cake...”_

_He’s doing better than you thought he would. After you’re done with the first one, he scoots closer and asks, “So, what did your brother do after you came home?”_

_He always knows when something’s up, and he doesn’t usually let it go._

_“Dude, nothing happened.”_

_“He just kept making out with Cal?”_

_You put down the mic in your hand to look for the input. “He took him home right after I got home, okay?”_

_John bends over and pokes at a fixture. “Because you came home?” He begins untwisting a knob._

_“Hey, don’t fuck with that,” you yell, hurrying over. The fixture he was messing with had come loose from the bar it was on, but luckily, it’s still hanging from the safety cable. “Don’t touch lighting crew’s shit. They’ll get pissed at me.”_

_You go back to your mics. They can rehang that fixture on Monday._

_“Sorry.”_

_“It’s whatever.”_

_You finish up with the last one, and stand. He takes your hand again. “Are we going down now?”_

_You give his hand a squeeze. “Yeah.” You take him back over to the door and go down the ladder one at a time again, then lock up the green room. Back in the theatre, John checks his phone._

_“Shit...” He puts it away and looks up at you. “We won’t catch the next bus.”_

_You pull him down an aisle of chairs and sit in the middle. “We can just wait for the next one.”_

_He sits next to you, and puts up the armrest between you. You slide an arm around him, and he scoots close. You sit together in the dark theatre for some time._

_You bite the inside of your cheek and glance over at him. “Bro was drinking.”_

_John lifts his head from your shoulder. “Did he do anything?”_

_“We yelled at each other.”_

_John returns his head to your shoulder. “You ever thought about telling him about the nightmares?”_

_You shake your head. “No way. He’s fucking in love with Cal.”_

_John lifts his head again and scoots closer to you. “Dave, Cal could be some kind of maniac. I mean, you said he glares at you when you’re in the same room, right? That just gives me all kinds of bad feelings.”_

_“Bro’s not gonna listen to me anyway, Cal’s probably at our place right now. They’re probably on the futon, this very moment, feeling up each others’ dicks.”_

_“Dave―”_

_“I fuckin’ hate him, okay? I told him not to, and he brought him home again. He doesn’t give a fuck about anythin’ I gotta say. He’d rather bone that creep―”_

_“Dave!” John yells, shutting you up. “Did he do something to you? Last night?”_

_You look at him in the face. He’s completely serious. “He shook me a bit... Came into my room, grabbed my shoulders, and shook me really hard as he screamed at me.”_

_John just wraps his arms around you and hugs you tight, and then he kisses you. “He didn’t do anything else? He didn’t...”_

_“No. He just shook me.”_

_John frowns in the darkness._

_“Hey,” you say, turning more toward him. “It’s cool. Don’t worry about it.” You then press your lips against his again, and close your eyes._

_As you kiss in the seats, the safety cable of that fixture snaps, and it falls, taking out the ghostlight. The scoops at the same time flicker and go out, and John screams as suddenly you’re both consumed in darkness._


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sex.

_On Saturday, Bro has the day off. The second you’re up and out of bed, He warns you that Cal is coming over._

_How considerate, you think to yourself as you put on your shoes. You aren’t going to hang around that long to see him._

_You already called John to ask if you could head over to his place, but no one picked up. He’s probably up in his room watching that movie marathon on ABC Family today. So instead, you think you’re just going to walk around town._

_At first, you don’t really know where to go. You’ve only been living in Houston for a few months, so you don’t really know where a lot of places are. Just John’s place and the high school. And the graveyard._

_You haven’t been there since they died. It couldn’t hurt to go visit... You’re pretty sure you remember where it is. Sure. Why not. Let’s go visit your parents._

_Its a few miles away, but you just keep walking in the direction until you stumble upon it. As you walk down and up the streets, people pass by on both sides of you. Some glance or give a short ‘mornin’ before continuing on. Most do nothing to acknowledge you. Just another stupid teenager going nowhere._

_It takes a while, but you finally find the cemetery on the outskirts of downtown. Where there aren’t any buildings, just a small hill with some trees. You walk in under the large metal arch, and look the place over. It’s pretty deserted._

_Time to find Mom and Dad. They’re over with the new graves. Up in the back, on the slight hill._

_Once you’re there, at their tombstones, you feel kinda stupid. Like, you should have brought them something. Like a flower. You feel like you’re supposed to say something to them, like you miss them, or you love them, but you don’t. So instead, you just stand there awkwardly, kicking the dirt under your feet a bit, looking up and down at their graves until you feel like it’s time to go._

_The sun is starting to set behind the skyscrapers in the distance. Maybe Cal is gone by now. Yeah, time to head home._

_You go back down the hill, being careful not to step on any graves, and just as you’re leaving you run into Mr. Egbert._

_Well, you don’t run into him. But you notice him walking up the hill over to his family plot as you walk down. He’s got his white handkerchief out, and in his hands are a dozen roses._

_For a second, you feel the urge to give him a nice, friendly ‘sup Mr. E’, but as he passes you, your mouth is suddenly dry. It looks like he’s crying._

_So you just keep walking. As you leave under the same archway, you realize those flowers are probably for John’s grandma. Didn’t she pass away recently? You’ll ask John about it at school Monday._

_The sun sets just as you’re entering your building. God, you just really want to crawl in bed and get a goodnight’s sleep for once. You want to walk into your apartment, not find Cal and your brother making out for once, and just crash on the futon or something._

_Apparently that’s not going to happen though, because you can hear them yelling and laughing by the time you’re getting your key in the lock. When you open the door, they don’t even stop. Bro didn’t even hear you come in._

_“Hey,” you say. A mediocre attempt at dragging some attention away from the video game they’re playing on the futon._

_“Awe, fuck you, dude, that’s totally illegal,” Bro says after a second. He still doesn’t know you’re there._

_“I win again.”_

_“Hell fuckin’ no, best two out of three.”_

_You groan a bit to yourself, then go to your room. You kick off your shoes and pull off your shirt, then go back to the front room to grab something to eat. They’re still at it._

_You turn away from them for a second and look through the cabinets for something to eat. Then, you check the fridge. Inside is mostly Bro’s random anime weaponry, since he doesn’t have any other place to put it as of now, but on the bottom shelf there’s a new six pack of beer. There’s only two left, though._

_You grab one of the remaining cans, since he obviously isn’t going to stop you right now, and crack it open. You hate beer. You take a swig anyway._

_You stand leaned up against the counter, sipping beer, watching them play across the room. When Cal pulls another cheap move, Bro drops his controller and grabs Cal around the waist, then runs his fingers up his sides until Cal drops the controller, laughing and trying to push him away._

_When Bro does stop, he’s pretty much on top of him. They’re both breathing a bit heavily, then kiss. You turn away._

_“Come on, one more round.”_

_When you look back, they’re sitting up again, Cal in Bro’s lap. They go through player select, then start trying to beat the crap out of each other again. Wow, how romantic._

_You’re about to shrug the whole thing off and just go to bed, but then the game starts. You walk toward them until you’re standing just behind the futon. They still don’t notice you._

_“Cal, I swear to god, if you’re trying to corner me again―”_

_“Bro,” you state._

_He actually turns and looks at you this time, which gives Cal enough of an opening to almost finish him off._

_“Jesus Christ, Dave!” Bro yells, pausing the game. “What the fuck do you want?”_

_You don’t say anything for a second. You’re kind of surprised at how angry at you he sounds. “You let him use my controller?”_

_Bro glances down at the controller in Cal’s hands, like he has no idea what you’re talking about. Sure enough, it’s your lucky red one._

_“I just pulled the first one off the shelf―”_

_“We have four controllers Bro, why’d you let him use **my** controller.”_

_Bro shrugs. “It’s just a controller, li’l dude.”_

_You’re at an absence for words. The lucky game controller is sacred. And he’s just brushing it off. It’s just a controller. Just a piece of plastic. He knows how much you hate sharing your stuff._

_You glance around the coffee table quickly, expecting to see an explanation for his actions. He’s just buzzed or something, and didn’t realize._

_Except, tonight Bro’s sober. There isn’t a single opened beer can anywhere. He’s drinking a bottle of Crush._

_He’s looking at you now, waiting for you to say something. You have nothing left to say. You bring the can in your hand back to your lips, and as you sip, Bro snatches it from you, making some spill on your chest._

_“The fuck, Dave!” He puts it down on the coffee table, then gets up. You didn’t even drink half of it yet. You aren’t even buzzed._

_He puts his hands on your shoulders and shakes you gently so you’ll look up at him. You instead stare at the TV._

_“Dave, just tell me what the fuck’s wrong. Why’re you actin’ like this? Are you pissed at me?”_

_You stare at the paused game._

_“Answer me!”_

_Maybe you are buzzed, because when he shakes you, your brain gets kind of fuzzy. You suck in a sharp breath, and your eyes are wet. You don’t know why. You can’t stop it. Maybe you’re drunk. You just suddenly feel overwhelmed with emotion._

_“He’s using my character,” you state, forcefully._

_“Why does it matter―”_

_You look up at Bro, and his grip softens. “He’s using my fucking player!”_

_“Dave―”_

_“No, whatever, I’ll go to my room.” You brush his hands off of you, and turn to go back to your bedroom. “Go play your fucking game!”_

_You slam the door behind you once you make it to your room, then sink to the floor. Then you cry. You don’t know why, but you can’t stop it. The tears just keep coming._

_You want so badly for him to follow you, and find you on your floor sobbing, but this time he doesn’t. This time you’re left alone._

_Between sobs, you hear them playing their game through the walls. Between sobs, you choke on your breath and gasp for air. You cry so violently that you can’t breathe._

_You look up at your bed and try to pull yourself up so you can just go to sleep and forget this whole thing, but when you try to stand, you fall. Your head is spinning, and you can’t find your footing._

_Before you can get up again you black out._

_when you open your eyes again you see something distant_

_surrounded by a dull light_

_surrounded by tiny floating dull lights_

_a body_

_stabbed_

_through the cehst_

_you begin to walk towarde them_

_but when you take a step theres a sharp_

_pain_

_in your arm_

_when you look_

_down you see blood_

_like youve just been_

_sshot_

_every step you take_

_toward them you_

_are shot agaain_

_another stepppp_

_your ears are ringing_

_you can see them_

_clearly now_

_the body is_

_john_

_anothere stepp_

_youre draggging yrou feet now_

_around him float fierflies and_

_through his chest is a large_

_black_

_sword_

_youre shot aggain you fall on a_

_knee before him you_

_spit blood as it seeps thorugh your shirt_

_johns etyes are open he_

_looksa t you_

_with his_

_wide_

_dead_

_eyse_

_and as you re shot throug the_

_haed you see him standign next to the both of you_

_like a vultutre_

_you fall on johna nd are impaled with him_

_andd as you bleedout you clign to him_

_and screa_

_m but theres no sound_

_just a loud nouise as he reaches_

_down foour you_

_all the fireflies slipp from the air and die and_

_the teal eyesd vulture_

_cirslcles andscreaches_

_shrieking down_

_it slowly delfivers you_

_into comeplerte_

_darkness_

 

_You jolt awake the next morning drenched with sweat. You gasp and pant, and force yourself to sit up, which is a bad idea, because suddenly your head is throbbing. Did you really only drink half that can of beer? Maybe that was your second one. You can’t remember._

_You get up, and decide to go to Bro and ask him where the painkillers are. Maybe if he’s still in bed, you can ask to crawl in with him and the two of you can sleep all afternoon together._

_When you finally make it to his room, and push the door open, you’re appalled. Bro’s pants are hung over the end of his bed, his and Cal’s shirts are on the floor, and the two of them are still asleep in bed together._

_You walk over to Bro’s side, not even trying to be quiet, and watch them for a minute as they sleep. Cal’s laying on his bare chest, one arm around him, and Bro’s snoring lightly with his mouth open._

_They both look naked enough to have had sex._

_“Bro,” you say loudly._

_He grunts a bit and wakes up, which wakes up Cal as well. “Uhg...” He stretches a bit. “What time is it?”_

_“Why is he still here,” you demand._

_Bro squints up at you, then grabs his shades off his bedside stack of cinderblocks and puts them back on. “I told you yesterday he was stayin’ the night.”_

_You knit your brows. “When is he leaving?”_

_Bro doesn’t say anything right away. Cal shifts, and moves his arms further around Bro’s chest, like he’s protecting him from you._

_“Don’t talk about him like he ain’t here, li’l man. Go eat some breakfast or something, I wanna talk to you alone later.” He then turns and wraps his arms around Cal._

_You can’t believe it._

_You’re so close to losing it and screaming at them both, but you can’t. Bro isn’t going to listen to you. So, you just go ahead and do what he said, and make yourself some bread with butter. As you sit in the kitchen and wait for him to get up to give you that ‘talk’, you go ahead and take some aspirin to numb your throbbing hangover._

_After a few minutes, Bro walks out wearing his favorite boxers. He pulls out a chair, spins it around, and sits backwards with his arms resting on the back of it._

_“So, you gonna tell me why you were so upset last night?” He asks._

_You stare each other down for a good minute._

_Bro clicks his tongue. “You gotta say somethin’, li’l bro. If somethin’s botherin’ you, then―”_

_“Cal’s bothering me,” you interrupt._

_He raises his shoulders like he has no idea what you mean. “Because I let him use your controller?”_

_No, not because Bro let him use your controller. Because he’s using Bro. Because he’s taking Bro away from you. Because Bro would rather blow off work, and responsibility, and **you** to hang out with **him**._

_“Because you’re replacing me!”_

_He’s a bit stunned. “I ain’t replacing you,” he says in a soft voice._

_“All you ever do is spend time with him! He uses my controller, he uses my fucking player! Why can’t you just be happy with me!”_

_His expression remains unchanged. “I don’t understand why you can’t just try to get along with him. He’s real nice, you two actually have a lot in common.”_

_“I don’t want to have anything to do with him! I want him gone!”_

_Bro gets up then, and pushes in his chair. This time, he sounds kind of angry. “Dave, like it or not, he’s not leavin’. So either make friends, or get used to it.”_

_“You’re not listening to me!”_

_He sighs in an annoyed kind of tone. It’s actually happening. You’re losing him to Cal. “I’m gonna take a shower. Then me ‘n Cal are going out.”_

_“Bro, please!” You yell, but he’s already flash stepped out of the room._

_Just like he said he would, you hear the hall shower running. Just to spite him, you go to the refrigerator and take out his last can of beer. You pull yourself up onto the counter after, and sit there sipping it, waiting for him to come back out._

_When he does walk back out, he’s got Cal with him. They’re both fully dressed and holding hands, and Bro is leading him out the door._

_“Bye,” you call from your spot on the counter._

_Bro doesn’t look over at you. He doesn’t notice you’re drinking his last beer. He just gives a short “bye” in reply, then walks out the door with Cal._

_Welp._

_You hop down from the counter and move to the futon, where you continue to take swigs of beer every now and again while watching TV. If Bro isn’t going to pay you enough mind to stop you, then you’re going to drink to your heart’s content. Fuck Bro. You’ll have your own little party in the apartment without him._

_Once you’re done with the can, you stand, try to crush it in your fist, and then throw it down after giving up. You’re a bit light headed now, so you go to Bro’s room and begin kicking around some of his stuff._

_You scream and rip Bro’s pillows from his bed, throw them on the ground, and stomp on them. You’re so angry at him that you push his favorite turntable onto the floor. You stare down at it, still screaming until you just dissolve into sobs. You pick up the damaged thing and brush it off with your sleeve, then return it back to where it was. Then, you crawl into Bro’s bed, wrap the sheets around yourself, and cry into them until you fall asleep._

_You’re losing him._

 

_By the time you wake up, Bro and Cal have returned. Bro must have found you asleep in his bed, because when you sit up and look around, you find his pillows were under your head, and you’d been properly tucked in._

_You kind of want to just get comfortable again and fall asleep with Bro’s scent all around you, but instead you get up to check on him. You creep toward the front room and watch Bro and Cal on the couch from the hallway. They’re kissing again._

_You want to walk out and apologize to Bro about earlier, so you wait until he pulls away. You’re about to walk over, but when they do part, you’re still. Bro’s giving him that genuine smile. They kiss again for just a second, and this time when they break you hear him say “I love you.”_

_Your heart aches._

_You can’t bear to watch another second of this. You turn and flee to your room. As you do, you repeat it over and over again in your mind._

  
_i love you_

 

_For hours after that, you lay awake on your bed with your head pressed so deep into your pillow that it drowns out all sound. It only works until Bro and Cal go to bed, and then you have to put your pillow over your head so you don’t hear them moving around through the wall._

_You’re so tired, and you can’t sleep. You’re so tired of **this**._

_You’re actually starting to fall asleep around three am, long after your brother and Cal did, but you’re woken up by a distant sound. Something moving in the hallway._

_You suck in a sharp breath and your body tenses. For a second, it sounds like whatever it is is moving toward your room, but then you hear it again, and it’s moving away. Something falls in the kitchen and rolls to a stop._

_You’re shaking, but you get out of bed anyway. This is a horrible idea and you know it, but you need to know what’s making the noise. You’re sick of these hallucinations._

_You creep into the hall. The entire apartment is pitch black, except for the faint light of some kitchen appliances, but your eyes are very used to the dark so it’s no problem._

_You’re breathing so loudly and shakily, and your body is still trembling with fear, but you keep taking steps forward until you’re in front of Bro’s door. It’s shut. On the floor outside, though,  is a pair of orange boxers._

_A shuffling noise from the front room makes you look up from them. You lick your dry lips and take another step down the hallway. When you make it to the end, you slowly look around the corner into the kitchen._

_Standing there next to the counter in the dark is Cal. He’s completely naked, except for a paper bag over his head. His skin is so pale in the low light. Pale and without any flaws._

_It feels like your heart is pounding so loudly behind your ribcage, and your grip on the hem of your shirt tightens until your knuckles are white. You hold your breath as he slowly turns his head and looks at you, like he knows you’re there, even though he has the bag over his head._

_After a second, you regain control over your body, and slam your back against the wall, pulling yourself back into the safety of the hall. He knows you’re here. He knows you’ve seen him. John was right, he’s going to kill you now._

_You shut your eyes tight and press yourself as flat to the wall as you can, trying to disappear. After a minute, you hear him take a step toward the hallway. Then another. He’s coming to kill you. He stole a knife from the drawer and now he’s going to kill you with it, you know it._

_You keep hearing his footsteps getting closer and closer, until they just stop. After another minute, you slowly open your eyes. Cal stands right in front of you, paper bag in his hand._

_He scowls down at you. “You should be in bed.”_

_You’re too terrified to reply, you just run. You run to you bed, tripping over a cord on your floor in the process, and crawl under the sheets. You don’t sleep a wink after that, you don’t stop shaking either._

_In the morning, you get up and leave for school before Cal and Bro wake up, and you’re glad for that. You don’t want to have to talk to either of them right now._

_John is down in the lobby by the time you get down there, so you link arms and walk to the bus stop together. You don’t say anything at first, not until you’re on the bus and on your way to school._

_“Dave, are you okay?” He asks, looking concerned._

_“I’m fine,” you assure him. He frowns at the forcefulness in your voice. You don’t want to think about Bro right now. You don’t want to think about how he’s slipping away from you._

_Really, you just want to go home and crawl in bed again. You want to sleep forever. You want to sleep and never wake up again. School sounds like the worst possible thing for you at this moment._

_You’re distracted from your thoughts when John squeezes your hand. You look up and over at him. He looks even more concerned now. “Hey, it’s okay to talk to me about it.”_

_You give no reply, just look down again after a minute. Instead of just dropping the subject like you expected, John continues._

_“Is it Bro? Did he get drunk?”_

_If only._

_“Dave, you know I don’t mind if you stay with me for a while. I don’t want you getting hurt.”_

_“I said I’m fine.”_

_He bites his lip frustratedly. It’s cute, really cute, but it doesn’t help your mood. Usually, when you’re in this kind of state, he doesn’t know what to do with you, so he just leaves you alone until you’re in higher spirits. But instead today, he puts a hand on your cheek and makes you turn back and look at him, then he kisses you._

_He flat out kisses you on the bus in front of everyone, and he doesn’t even give a shit._

_You kiss him back instantly, and when you do pull away, you have a slight smile on your lips. He smiles back in turn, and then you return to sitting in silence._

_Soon enough, the bus pulls up in front of the school, and John moves to get up, but you remain seated. After eyeing you for a second, John sits back down, and the two of you wait for everyone else to get off before the bus continues on its route._

_He grins at you once the bus pulls back into the street and whispers, “My dad is gonna kill me if we get caught.”_

_You smirk back at him. “Worth it.”_

_The two of you kiss again, and then both stare out the window as you begin to head out of the downtown area._

_“Where are we going?” John asks._

_You just shrug. “We’ll just get off when we feel like it.”_

_You’ve never taken the bus this far before, you’ve only ever had to get off at the school. So, you and John both stare out the window together, watching the people go by. He squeezes your hand every now and again, and you return with a little squeeze of your own._

_You’re not sure what it is today, but the two of you feel very in synch. Like, you can just almost read his thoughts. You know for a fact he’s thinking about you and him. Together._

_The bus pulls up in front of a large office building, and some people get on. A man eyes you suspiciously, then sits. Once he’s not looking, you lace your fingers with John’s. You’re not afraid of what other people think._

_After a few more stops, the bus pulls up in front of a large park. You and John stand, and get off together, still holding hands. Theres just a handful of people walking about the park, since it is an early morning weekday, so you pull him toward a large grassy area where the two of you sit._

_“Wish I had a lunch,” you say, lying back on the grass. He lies down next to you._

_“I got a sandwich in my backpack,” John offers. “AB &J.”_

_He knows you hate almond butter._

_Since you’re silent, John drops the conversation and the two of you stare up at the clouds. After a few minutes, he takes your hand and laces your fingers together again._

_“Hey.”_

_You look over at him. “Hey.”_

_John just continues to watch the rolling clouds high above the two of you. “Do you think we’re ever really alone?”_

_You think because he’s staring at the sky that he’s talking about extraterrestrial life. “Aliens.”_

_“No, no, like, do you think theres like... more of us? Us like you and me.”_

_“What do you mean?”_

_He raises both arms toward the sky, still holding onto your hand with his left, and makes some wide gestures with them. “What if there are copies of us in alternate dimensions, and we all exist at the same time. We all always exist forever.”_

_“This sounds a lot like a time travel theory.”_

_He shakes his head. “Not time, space. Every moment we exist, there would be a dimension for that. Each moment would have its own universe, in which everyone exists, and it exists forever, but just for that moment.”_

_“Okay, so theres a billion copies of us in different dimensions. That would mean...?”_

_“What if some dimensions overlap? Two copies of us could exist simultaneously in the same universe, just in different points of space.”_

_“Sounds like time travel.”_

_“It’s not time travel, it’s just the overlappings of reality, resulting in the manifestation of two Daves, or two Johns at the same time.”_

_You roll onto your side to face him. “If that actually happened though, there wouldn’t just be two of us, there’d be two of everyone.”_

_John frowns a bit, then takes a second to try to figure that one out. “Okay, imagine it like this. Say we exist at this moment in a bubble.”_

_“A bubble.”_

_He smacks your shoulder. “Let’s say every moment in time is a bubble, and every instance and event in time is a bubble. It’s not the entire universe in each bubble, but just a small snippet of the universe._   
_“Like us holding hands right now. Say this event in time is a bubble, which exists in a plane of space too complicated for us to understand. Then, there’s another bubble of us on the bus, coming to the park. They’re separate, right? They don’t happen at the same time, so they’re separated into different bubbles.”_

_“Yeah.” You think you know where he’s going with this._

_“If the bubble of us on the bus were to pass through the bubble of us holding hands at the park, then the copies of us would exist at the same time, we’d just be at different points in space and not realize we exist simultaneously.”_

_“Time travel.”_

_“It’s not time travel!” He protests._

_You get on top of him and start trying to tickle his ribs. “Time travel, time travel, time travel.”_

_He squirms and squeals and tries to push you off, but the two of you just end up rolling around together in the grass until you both stop breathless._

_As you’re both panting, you put your arms on John’s cheeks and push your lips together. He doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around your neck and kiss you back. When you do finally break, he’s smiling like a dork._

_“I wanted to ask you something,” he says, before you kiss again. “I wanna know―” You cut him off once more. “Dave!” He tries to push you away a little, but he’s not trying very hard, and your lips meet again. “I wanna know what this makes us!”_

_You break away for good this time, and stare at each other. “What’d ya mean.”_

_He shrugs slightly. “You know, are we dating?”_

_You suddenly become very nervous. “Do you want to?”_

_His lips curl up a bit in the corners, and he nods once. “I love you.”_

_You suck in a sharp breath. You hadn’t thought about it until now. In that instant, all those horrible memories of that past weekend just flooded back and filled your mind. You remember everything **they** did._

_“Dave? Are you okay?”_

_You’ve gone pretty much stiff._

_“Dave?”_

_You sit up and grab your backpack, and when John sees that you’re leaving, he grabs your arm._

_“Tell me what’s wrong? Do you not like me?” He looks so hurt. He looks wounded. “It’s okay, we can just be friends...”_

_“No,” you bark, not meaning to. “John, it’s not you, I love you―it’s Cal, it’s Cal and Bro―”_

_“What?” He sounds so frantic and afraid for you, and pulls you back down onto the grass. “What happened? What did they do?”_

_You shake your head, you can’t do this. You can’t do this right now. “John, they were... Bro was...”_   
_“What did Bro do? Tell me, you have to tell me! Did he hurt you?”_

_Your throat closes up and you’re too afraid to speak._

_“Dave, did he hurt you!”_

_Your mouth opens and closes, but you can’t make the words. John’s grip on your wrists tightens as he becomes more concerned, and a second later, he pushes up your sleeves._

Up and down your arms are cuts and scratches. Your fingers curl stiffly as you stare down at them, then you rip your sleeves back down to cover them up.

_John looks horrified. Instead of demanding what happened, he just pulls you into an embrace and holds you tight, rubbing your back. You put your own arms around him, and the two of you sit there hugging for a long time._

_You have no idea how you got all those cuts._

_And you don’t want to know._

_Later, you and John return to your high rise building after school would have let out. You ask him to please stay with you at the apartment, but John says he’s in enough trouble as it is. He gives you a kiss out front before continuing on toward his house._

_You feel strangely heavy as you walk in the door of your apartment. Like there’s a weight in your chest. You don’t know how you feel, but you don’t feel good, you just feel strangely hollow though you drag your feet._

_You wish someone were with you to comfort you._

_As you drop your backpack on the futon and begin to take off your shoes, you hear a noise from the hallway. Like a soft moan._

_You kick off the other shoe, then take a step toward the hall. Then another. There is another sound._

_This time, it’s your brother._

_When you’re standing at the arch, you can see Bro’s door is ajar. You take a step toward it as quietly as you can._

_“Nnhg... Fuck,” you hear Bro curse._

_You slowly approach the door and put a hand against it, then try to peek through the crack._

_What you see horrifies you._

_From where you are you can see Bro on top of Cal in his bed, kissing him and thrusting into him. Cal’s nails dig into his back and he arches into him as they kiss, and he moans Bro’s name over and over like he can’t get enough of him._

_“Dane! Mnngaaah! Dane, harder!”_

_Your heart is throbbing in your chest and you’re holding your breath. You want so badly to run back out of the apartment and scream, but you can’t move._

_You can’t look away._

_Until they both orgasm, you watch Cal and your brother have sex._


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sex?

_When you wake up in the morning and go to check on Bro, he and Cal are still naked in bed together. You glare down at Cal, who looks like he’s sleeping so peacefully wrapped up in Bro’s arms and blankets. You don’t have that luxury._

_It’s still pretty early, so you then go to the kitchen to get yourself something to eat for breakfast. As you sip some juice on the futon, Bro comes out looking pretty groggy. He practically reeks of Cal and really passionate buttsex._

_“Morning, sunshine,” you call from where you sit._

_Bro ignores you, and goes to the fridge to scope some breakfast._

_You frown. You weren’t exactly happy with him in the first place, now he’s not going to even pay you some mind. You turn back around and face the TV. If he’s not gonna say anything, then fuck him._

_A second later, you hear the fridge door slam. “Dave.” You don’t like the tone of his voice. “Don’t touch my beer, understand?”_

_When you don’t reply, he just groans and mumbles something about how you’re such a piece of shit, then goes back to his room._

_“Love you too, Bro,” you whisper to yourself. For the first time in a long time, you want to kill yourself._

_When you go down to the lobby to meet John, he notices you look upset. He takes your hand and walks you out to the bus stop, where you stand and wait together. While sitting on the bus in the back, he gives your hand little squeezes and kisses you from time to time. You hate having to leave him when you get to school._

_Your day after that just gets shittier and shittier. You’re pretty sure you failed that math test, and in history you had to be paired up with the school juggalo for your cold war project. You were really looking forward to seeing John again after school, but he had already gone home sick in the middle of the day._

_As you ride the bus home alone, you think about your brother. All you want right now it to just go home, and lay on your bed for a while without having him be a total dick to you. That’s all you ask._

_After walking up to your apartment, you stick your key in the lock and go inside. At first, it looks like no one’s home. But when you go to your room, you stop just short and watch from beyond the hallway as_

_the naked and skinny_

_cal_

_emerges from your room_

_with that bag_

_over his head_

_theres something in his_

_arms hes holding_

_a book_

_hes holding_

_your photo album_

_you suckin a breaht_

_and teal turns_

_the eye stares at you_

_hes got your photo album_

_he takes a_

_step gttoward you_

_and you suddenly_

_begin blacking outt_

_you fall and he_

_stoeps towards you_

_descends upon you_

_and you_

_passs_

_out_

 

_When you wake up, you’ve been tucked into your bed. You sit up and instantly regret it, because your head is pounding. You must have hit it when you passed out._

_You’re not just hallucinating anymore. You’re actually getting hurt._

_Then, you remember your photo album. You dig you hand behind your mattresses and search around for it down the crack. You start to get worried when you can’t find it right away, but you eventually locate the torn up old thing and pull it out._

_Thank god._

_You take your pillows and stack them against the wall behind your head so you can sit up a bit in bed, then crack open the album to look through it._

_Instantly you know something is wrong._

_Where’s your picture of Bro at his graduation?_

_It’s your oldest photo in there, and it should be on the first page, but it isn’t. theres just an empty sleeve where it used to be. Maybe it fell out?_

_You turn the page and check out the pictures of your family around Christmas a few years back. There’s that photo of you and that orange parrot you got that year. He didn’t last more than a few months before he got out an open window. A day later you found him in the back yard covered in flies with one of his wings torn clean off._

_The next picture is of some of the other gifts you and Bro got._

_The picture after that is supposed to be Bro messing around with a new video game he got, but the one’s missing too._

_You flip to the next page, and there’s another missing picture._

_You go through your entire photo album, and you can’t find a single picture of your brother. They’re all missing. Every last one of them. You know for a fact who did this._

_Even after you get to the end of the pictures, you look through the empty sleeves in the back. It isn’t surprising to find that they’re all still empty._

_Except the last two pages._

_Instead of all your Bro photos, there are two old newspaper clippings shoved into some sleeves. You skim them over._

_One is about a teenaged murderer._

_The other is about a car accident on Lockhart drive._

_You shut the album before you read anymore, and shove it back behind your mattress. Then, you get up._

_You remember that newspaper article from the day it came out on the front page. That was the story about the accident you were in. You really aren’t in the mood to read of those events again. It’s just too painful._

_In the front room, Bro is sitting and watching TV. Cal is nowhere to be seen. It doesn’t look like he’s over._

_You sit down on the futon next to him. “Bro? I need to talk to you, please.”_

_He glances down at you, then picks up the remote and mutes the TV. Before turning back to chat, he picks up can of beer from the coffee table and sips it. He must have bought more while you were at school._

_“What’s up, li’l man.”_

_You’re quiet for a bit, trying to work up the courage to tell him._

_“Bro... I don’t think you should be with Cal.”_

_He doesn’t look at you again, he just stares at the silent television in front of him. “ ‘N why the fuck shouldn’t I?”_

_You swallow a bit and watch as he brings the can back to his lips again. This time he doesn’t sip, he full out drinks it._

_“Bro, he glares at me, and he sneaks around while you’re asleep―”_   
_“So?”_

_Your face gets a bit pink with frustration. “Listen to me, he’s not who you think he is!”_

_Bro shakes his head, “Dave, don’t fuckin’ start this again. He’s not leaving.”_

_“Would you just listen to me! He stole my photos!”_

_He turns and looks at you, which makes you flinch a bit. “Don’t fuckin’ tell me what to do, you li’l shit. Don’t fuckin’ accuse him of stealin’ nothing, you understand me? Shut the fuck up, stop talkin’ shit about Cal.”_

_You’re so angry at him for always taking Cal’s side. You’re so angry at him for everything, you think you’re just going to go back to your room. You stand._

_“You’d care what I had to say if I was the one sucking your dick!”_

_What happens next happens so quickly that you don’t even realize until afterward. But next thing you know, you’re on the ground, Bro is towering over you, and your nose is bleeding._

_What John feared finally happened. He hit you._

_He hit you hard._

_“Oh my god,” he says, completely horrified at himself. He kneels down next to you, then wipes the blood from your nose with his hand. It must have sobered him up a bit, because he’s not angry anymore in the slightest. “Dave, I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”_

_He pulls you into his arms and hugs you close as a way of begging for forgiveness, then scoops you up and carries you back to bed._

_Those moments you’re in his arms, you don’t care if you can feel your heartbeat in your cheek, or if your nose is throbbing with pain. You hold onto his shirt with your fist and cling to him. When he lays you down, you don’t want to let him go, but you must._

_You just want him to keep holding you._

_He says he’s going to get the first aid kit and patch you all up, but you’ve already fallen back asleep by the time he returns with it._

_Then, you begin to dream._

_when your eyes open your e somewhere_

_far away_

_an island_

_there is a large expanding sea_

_that ends in edges of darkness_

_you look down at yourself as water_

_rushes over your shoes_

_youre in the red suit_

_agian_

_dave_

_someone calls out_

_you look up and see_

_john_

_you runover to him and_

_your legst are so heavy_

_john_

_john_

_you yell_

_john_

_he extends a hnad to you_

_and yruo so dizzy_

_you reahc for him but youre_

_fading in_

_and out_

_and_

 

You wake up for a second. You wake up standing in Bro’s doorway. He’s in his bed, asleep. You move to take another step toward him, and as you do, you slip back into your subconscious.

 

_john smiles at you_

_he tajkes your hand agina_

_and you stand together_

_as the island is swallowed up_

_in the dark_

_and youre soon surrenouded_

_john_

_he smiles at you_

_john_

_the dark is creeping up your legs_

_surriounding his face_

_he smiles_

_you look around and_

_next to you_

_in the green suit_

_teal eye turns to you_

_raises a finger to their bag_

_shhhh_

_itll be over soon_

_just as the_

_darark_

_swallows you up_

_yoru skin burns_

_yroubeing_

_torn apart_

_and in the_

_dark_

_a bright white_

_light_

_rips the fle_

_sh_

_from your_

_boens_

_john_

_john_

_john just smiles_

 

_You jolt awake the next morning and find that you’re in bed. You release the sheets balled up into your fists, and realize you’re neither in your bed, or are alone in bed._

_Bro rolls over and grunts. “Why’re you up already...” He seems to go back to sleep._

_You turn to him and then crawl back down under the covers and get comfortable up against him. He opens his eyes and stares at you groggily._

_You might as well get the obvious question out of the way. “Bro, why’m I in your bed?”_

_He moves an arm up to his pillow and fluffs it a bit, then flops back down. “Last night you came in and asked if you could sleep in here. You don’t remember?”_

_“No.”_

_He shrugs a bit. “Well, you did. Just go back to sleep or somethin’ it’s like five am.”_

_With that, he falls back asleep._

_You lay there not knowing what to think, so eventually you just accept that you probably slept walked into his room and asked, then curl up with him. You don’t go back to sleep though, there’s no way you’re getting anymore sleep before school. So instead, you just watch him breathe peacefully in and out his nose._

_You’re a bit afraid to take his hand because he might wake up, but you do anyway, sliding your fingers between his. He hardly stirs._

_Around the time when you usually have to get up and get ready for school, you slip your hand back out of his and get up to change your clothes and get ready. You don’t want to, but you don’t have a choice._

_You’re so happy when you see John down in the lobby. He runs over and takes your arm, and the two of you walk together._

_“Dave, are you okay?” He asks, eyeing you closely._

_“I’m fine.”_

_“You sure?”_

_You nod. “Peachy.”_

_He doesn’t reply, but he doesn’t let it go either. On the bus, he puts a hand on your cheek and turns your head so you’re looking at him. He then moves a finger to your nose, and touches a bit of dried blood still there from last night._

_He looks back up at you then for answers._

_“It’s not that bad, it’s just a little blood. He didn’t even break anything.”_

_“Dave, it’s wrong, and you know it!”_

_“It was for my own good, just don’t worry about it.”_

_He sits back in his seat and looks helpless. He’s just trying to make sure you’re safe. “I don’t want you getting hurt. What if next time he does break something?”_

_You shrug. “There’s not gonna be a next time, he didn’t even know what he was doing.”_

_He sighs, and you take that as a sign that he’s not going to fight it anymore. You sit back in your seat, and he rests his head on your shoulder. “I worry about you a lot.”_

_“Why? Because my brother is dating a psychopathic murderer who stole all my photos?”_

_He lifts his head. “What?”_

_“Yesterday when I walked into the apartment Cal was coming out of my room with my photo album. Later when I was looking through it all of my pictures of Bro were gone.”_

_“Why would he take your pictures of Dane?” He asks, not really understanding._

_“I don’t know, because he’s a fucking psychopathic murderer with an obsession with my brother.”_

_John bites his lip, and squeezes your hand. “If anything happens, anything at all, come to my house, okay?”_

_“I know.”_

_Then you kiss. It’s cut short though, because you hear the kids next to you whispering about you. When you pull away and glare at them, they shut up._

_In theatre production, lighting crew is busy running around putting up fixtures and running through the entire performance as the cast shuffles around on stage, trying to figure out how to dance. You scoff from the booth as you watch them. This entire musical is going to be one hilarious catastrophe._

_Since you’re not busy in the slightest, and everyone in lights is working out in the house, you go ahead and put your feet up on the counter and whip out your iPod. No one’s gonna care if you spend the rest of class jamming out quietly by yourself._

_You put in your earbuds and listen to your new playlist on shuffle, at the same time tapping your fingers on the arms of the office chair you’re reclined in. Most of the playlist is just some prototypes of a few songs you’ve been working on. They’re pretty raw right now, but it’s still cool to listen to them while you think to yourself._

_You think about Bro and Cal a few nights ago. When you caught them doing the nasty._

_You stop tapping your fingers on the armrest and instead grip it firmly. Why did you watch them? You’re an artist, that’s why, and you can appreciate a nice naked body. That’s all. Seeing them, seeing **him** like that was just too much. You were drawn to the way his body moved and how his sweat-drenched muscles worked and―just how motherfucking **powerful** he looked._

_He’s a divine specimen. And you’re just an artist who can appreciate that. That’s all. There’s nothing to feel guilty about._

_But you still feel dirty._

_A new song starts. It’s the one you’d worked really hard on a few months back. The music flows and pulses like a living thing, and you curse yourself for getting aroused by the combination of this sick beat and these questionably taboo thoughts in your mind._

_You look over at the door of the booth. It’s still closed._

_You go back to lying in the chair with your feet up, and your hand moves slowly from the armrest to your crotch. Your eyes close and you try to just focus on the song, as your fingers ghost over your groin, and undo your button and zipper. You sigh a bit at the relief of pressure._

_Just as you’re going to slip your hand down your pants and start to feel really dirty, you hear the door to the booth open beyond your earbuds. You rip them out and sit up, looking over at the door. John stands there with his backpack._

_“...This isn’t what it looks like,” you say. It obviously is._

_John’s expression doesn’t change, and he drops his bag by the door before closing it, then waltzes over. Then, he sits on the counter next to your feet, so you drop them._

_He looks down at your undone pants, and laughs. “Did I interrupt Dave time?”_

_“Fuck no, I haven’t even started yet.”_

_He sits there silently as he thinks. “Schools over now, no ones in the theatre.”_

_“I know,” you state, figuring as much when he came in._

_John hops off the counter, then takes your hand and pulls you out of the chair. “Wanna try something weird?”_

_You smile and shrug, enjoying this so far. “Let’s get weird.”_

_He smiles back, then pulls you into a kiss. You instantly move your hand to his hip, and the other to the countertop behind him, and push him against it. The two of you kiss for a minute before you break for air, then you just kiss again._

_He surprises you when he slips you his tongue, but you don’t protest, and the two of you make out._

_“Dave,” John says, pulling away afterward. “You’re hard.”_

_“So are you,” you reply before going in for his neck, then start nipping and sucking his collar._

_He lets out a cute little huff of air, and wraps his arms tighter around you. “I wanna know what we are.”_

_You pull away just enough to switch to the other side of his neck, and begin working on giving him a second hickey. “What d’ya mean?”_

_“Are we togeth―aaah!” you cut him off mid sentence when you move up a bit and begin nibbling his ear, which is apparently very sensitive. He’s practically putty in your hands now._

_You don’t know how you’re doing it, but this all seems to come naturally to you. Maybe foreplay is your secret talent you never knew you had. John seems to be enjoying it._

_“If you want,” you reply before kissing him on the mouth. He moans something against your lips, but there’s no way to make out what it is. While he’s distracted with the kiss, you snake your hand down and begin palming him through his jeans. He moves into your hand like he’s never touched himself before._

_“Dave, please,” he begs, moving his own hand to your crotch. “I need you so bad.”_

_As you begin to unbutton his jeans so you can coax out his dick, you hear footsteps outside the booth._

_“Quick, hide,” you order, forcing yourself to pull away from him. John immediately zips his pants back up and dives under the counter, hearing the footsteps as well. You jump back into your office chair just as Sollux opens the door and walks in._

_“Sup,” he grumbles, then goes to the light board._

_You nonchalantly try to inconspicuously put your dick away. “Sup.”_

_He starts turning off all the fixtures, and when he’s done, he turns toward you. “... Dave, what the fuck are you doing.”_

_“Who? Me? I’m just working on the musical numbers.”_

_He doesn’t buy it for a second, but he doesn’t care enough to ask if you were just trying to get off, so he just goes back to shutting everything down. It looks like he’s about to go, since he pulls out the keys from his pocket, but then as he’s turning off the lighting crew’s computer, he drops them next to the counter._

_You hold your breath as he bends down to scoop them up. There’s no way he didn’t see John. John was right there. And yet, he just stands back up, grabs his backpack, and then leaves after tossing the keys to you._

_After you both hear the theatre door close behind him, John crawls back out. The two of you just kind of stand there awkwardly in silence. There’s no way you can revive your erection now, you’ll just have to wait until later. Maybe after school tomorrow._

_“My dad is actually expecting me home soon,” he says._

_“Let’s go then.” You grab your backpack, then him, and the two of you head down to the bus stop._

_It’s a pretty tense ride back to the apartment, and there is no exchange between you and John. Once you get off the bus, you and John hug._

_“I do wanna be with you,” you tell him as you embrace._

_“I know.”_

_You both pull away in what feels like slow motion._

_“I’ll see you tomorrow?” You ask._

_“Yeah...”_

_“Okay. Bye.”_

_“Bye.”_

_Then he’s gone._

_Thanks a fucking lot, Sollux._

_You go ahead and walk into the lobby to get out of this heat, and head for the stairs, but you notice the out of order sign on the elevator has been removed. Risk it? Why not. You turn and approach the death trap, feeling unusually cavalier. You go ahead and press the button to summon it, then step back and think about how nice it would be to go up to the apartment and crawl back in bed with Bro._

_A moment later, a ding comes from the elevator and the doors open. You step inside._

_For once, they’re not playing Frank Sinatra. Instead, some very cliched easy listening music is coming out the speakers. You tap your finger against your thigh as you listen to it and the doors close again, then you select your floor._

_It takes a moment for the thing to start up again, but when it does, you begin your ascent. At first, nothing seems to go wrong. When you near 21, you start to slow down, but just before you actually reach the floor, you just stop._

_You stand there in the middle for a minute, wondering if you’ve arrived or not, but nothing happens. The music continues quietly._

_You tap your foot and wait, eventually pressing the open doors button. Nothing happens. You press the emergency button._

_The music skips_

_you take a step back away from the door_

_you suddenly feel very claustrophobic_

_the mucis skips again_

_and you stand in the corner_

_its getting smaller_

_as the music distorts the_

_elewvator_

_gets smaller_

_and smaller_

_there is a scratchign_

_the music is so loud_

_the room is spinning_

_and youre_

_running out of_

_oxygen the_

_room is so small and_

_there is something on your back_

_somethign on your neck_

_a hand coems_

_out of the wall_

_there are hadsn_

_everywhere_

_touchign you_

_grabbign at your ha_

_ir at your clsohtes_

_scratchign your shkin_

_and_

_ripping touchgin_

_you_

_fingers in your_

_mouth_

_the walls are gettign closere and_

_you see_

_the dorr is_

_sliping away_

_and as youre_

_torn apasart_

_you lsip into_

_the darknesss_

_and_

_“Dave! DAVE!”_

_You scream so loud your throat hurts, and you cling to Bro as he holds you in his arms. You force your eyes open and look around frantically, still hyperventilating. You’re in the hallway outside the apartment. The elevator door is still open just good ten feet away._

_Bro hugs you tight. “It’s okay, it’s gonna be okay, just calm down,”_

_Once your breath returns and you can breathe normally, your eyes fill up with tears and you hug him back so tight. You cling to him and just let everything loose and cry your fucking eyes out. He just sits there with you in his lap and arms and pets your hair, whispering that you’re gonna be okay._

_You’re gonna be okay._

_You cling to him a long time, even after you stop shaking so violently. You need him. You need him right now._

_“I was so scared.”_

_You suck in a breath of air and squeeze him tighter. For once you feel like he really cares about you. You cry a little harder just because for a split second you know he cares about you._

_He pulls away a minute later so he can get a good look at you. “I’m gonna take you inside now, and put you in bed, mkay?”_

_You stare at his genuinely concerned face, and then you stare at Cal, who is standing behind him. He’s not glaring at you this time, he’s scowling._

_You’re upsetting him. Good._

_“I wanna sleep in your bed, with you,” you say, looking back at Bro._

_He’s so desperate to make sure you’re okay that he agrees without question. “Okay, okay, just let me take Cal home then we can lie ‘n bed together, okay?”_

_Cal looks furious._

_You sniffle and nod, then Bro picks you up and takes you inside. He lays you down in his bed, pulls the blankets up to your chin, and tucks you in really nice. Then, he escorts Cal out. As you lay awake in his bed, waiting for him to return, you think about what just happened, and you know what you have to do._

_You’re not losing Bro to Cal. You’re going to either get rid of him, or die trying before you let that happen._

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #TW

_When you meet John down in the lobby, it’s still a bit tense and awkward, but you hold hands all the way to school. Once you get off the bus he kisses you goodbye, and you split up to go to class. You wish you had said something to him while you were sitting next to each other, but you didn’t want to mess up your relationship anymore._

_After school, you wait in the booth for him for an hour before you finally come to terms with the fact that he isn’t coming to get you. Your heart aches as you walk to the bus stop alone. You feel so empty; what happened to make him like this? Does he think you just don’t like him? Maybe when you get home you’ll hop online and send him a long message about how you love him so much and want to be with him._

_If you rap him a romantic poem, perhaps it’ll turn his mood around. It’s worked before, just in a friendly way._

_You then get off the bus and walk into your lobby. By Bro’s request after learning that the screaming fit you had was triggered by your newfound fear of small spaces and elevators, you take the stairs all the way up to your apartment. When you make it to your door, you find it unlocked, and let yourself in._

_Today, you’re not even surprised to find Bro and Cal sitting at the table eating some pasta brought home from the nearby Italian bistro. What does surprise you is the atmosphere. The shades are drawn down over all the windows, and there are some candles lit on the table._

_They both look over at you as you drop your bag on the floor with a ‘thump!’ Whoops. Looks like you interrupted their date._

_They try to go back to eating together in peace, with the occasional glance up at each other and stupid grin. It makes you sick. You flop down on the futon and turn on the TV, which makes the atmosphere significantly less romantic._

_Bro sighs from his seat at the table, then he gets up. “I’ll take care of it.” He then walks over to you and takes the remote. “Dave, can you please go to your room or somethin’ so we can have some privacy? Today’s real special for us.”_

_You stare up at him and try to look wounded. You try to remind him that he’s selling out his own kind by doing this._

_He just sighs again. “Look, if you’re gonna be that way, fine.” He then grabs you, and forcefully lifts you into his arms. You kick a bit and swear, but he puts you in your room just the same. “Stay here until we’re done.” Then he leaves._

_You’re heartbroken all over again._

_For a while, you do actually give them some privacy, but after about an hour you sneak out of your room and down the hall to spy on them._

_Their lovely little take out dinner is left on the table, and they’re currently on the futon wrapped up in each others’ arms, talking. You press yourself against the wall and strain to hear them._

_“... and if this sounds real gay then just stop be, but I feel like I really connect with you or something,” you hear Bro say. “I feel like maybe we were lovers in a past life or something, I just feel like I’ve loved ya for a long time.” He pauses and listens to Cal mumble something, then laughs. “Yeah, cheesy as fuck, I knew it.” Then they kiss._

_Your heart sinks. Maybe this is wrong._

_You stare at them from just beyond the room and observe how happy Bro is. Is it really that bad? So what if he can’t be happy with you, at least he’s happy at all. Maybe it’s about time you stopped fighting it so much and grew up a little._

_When they break, they’re both a bit out of breath. “I’m gonna take a shower, then we’ll have dessert, ‘kay?” He asks, then gets up and starts heading toward the hall._

_You make a quick duck out of his way without him noticing you, then slip back into the front room._

_Now that Bro is gone, Cal is turned completely away from you toward the TV. It isn’t on, he’s just ignoring you. You take the opportunity to go to the fridge and get yourself a snack. As you look around for more apple juice, you notice Bro’s new six pack at the bottom only has three left. He must be drinking tonight._

_dave..._

_The hairs on the back of your neck prick a bit. You know what’s happening. You just hope to god that staring into the fridge and hoping he’ll go away will do something. It does nothing._

_dave_

_you straighten up and look back at the couch_

_hes still sitting there_

_turned away from you_

_with the bag over his head_

_your ears are filled with a loud_

_hushign sound_

_which gets luoder_

_as teal turns_

_and looks at you_

_suddenly_

_they are at the edge of the kitchen_

_standing_

_naked_

_you scream and drop_

_your juice_

_they are_

_right before you_

_your knees fail_

_you crumple to the_

_floor_

_and_

_he stands over you_

_teal stares_

_down at you and_

_you sccream for_

_mercy_

_A moment later, and Bro is at your side, holding you up, trying to get you to stop screaming at Cal. The bag is gone. Cal stares down at you without expression._

_Bro lightly hits your cheeks while yelling, “Dave, Dave, stop screaming, please stop screaming, it’s okay. It’s okay.”_

_When you come to your senses and stop, you hug him tight and cry again._

_This is why you can’t just give up to Cal. Cal is a monster._

_Bro shakes his head as he hugs you back softly. “I’m putting ya to bed, and I don’t want you getting up for nothin’, you hear?”_

_“Bro, please! Don’t leave me alone!”_

_“No, Dave. No.” He means it. This time, he legitimately means it. “You need to lie down and sleep, I can’t fucking do this every single day. I need some time alone with Cal.”_

_You’re crying so hard that your head is throbbing. “Please,” you beg._

_He lifts you for a second time, and takes you to bed, where he tucks you in. “Everything’ll be okay, just get some rest.” Then he’s gone again._

_Why is he doing this. How can he not see what Cal’s doing to you, and to him? You can’t go back out and talk to him, you just can’t. He’d get even angrier at you. He’d just put you back in bed, and tell you to shut up and go to sleep._

_So, you just crawl down under your blankets, and try to sleep. But you can’t._

_When did your relationship become this volatile? Dane is your brother. You used to rely on him in these kinds of situations, and now he’s against you. What could you have possibly done to make him hate you so much?_

_You trace little spades and diamonds on your sheets with your finger._

_Cal is poisoning him. That has to be it._

_Your brother never drank this much before, he’s never been so violent with you. It must be Cal’s influence. He must have asked Bro if they could drink, and started controlling him, telling him lies about you― **doing something**. That has to be it. Bro would never hate you._

_It’s all his fault._

_You continue to trace shapes while you lay in bed, trying to figure out why he’s doing this. Why would Cal want to keep Bro from you. Why is he so possessive and manipulative and **evil**?_

_You clench your fist around a bundle of sheets, and remember what John was saying a week ago._

_What if Cal is a serial killer?_

_You turn onto your back and stare at the ceiling as you try to put the pieces together. Everything seems to point in that direction. The hospital, the kitchen, your photos..._

_Cal’s trying to kill your brother, and to do that, he has to make sure you’re at a distance. That’s why he’s been getting close to him. He’s building up trust, tearing down your relationship, and then when Bro finally wants nothing to do with you, Cal will kill him._

_You can’t let that happen. You can’t let him win._

_But you also can’t leave your room._

_It’s getting dark now, and you’re still lying awake in bed, listening. Just listening for any kind of indication as to what they’re up to. The TV had been turned on after you were left in your bedroom, but now the apartment is silent._

_Then, there’s a noise from Bro’s room. You hear a dull thump through the wall. The door has been slammed shut._

_You quietly slip out from under your covers, and go to the door. You press your ear against it and strain to hear anything out in the hall. When no sound comes, you twist the knob slowly and pull your door open a crack. The coast is clear. All the lights are out._

_The silence remains as you step out of your room, and creep quietly into the front room. In the dull light, you can see the leftover takeout still on the table, and quite a few beer cans on the coffee table. They’re all empty. This is very bad._

_You turn around and stare at Bro’s closed door when you hear another noise from his room. It’s unmistakably Bro._

_You cautiously approach the door, and try to see if you can peek through a crack, but its shut tight. So instead, you press your head against it and try to listen._

_You rip yourself away a second later. They’re having sex again._

_You know you should just go back to your room and forget about it, but you’re so angry. You’re seething. Bro locked you up in your room so he could fuck his boyfriend._

_Without thinking, you grab the knob and throw the door open. Bro and Cal are on the bed again, Bro gripping his headboard as he fucks him into the mattress doggy style. It takes Bro a second to look over and realize you’re standing in the doorway._

_He’s furious._

_“Jesus fucking Christ!” He yells, “Get out!”_

_All your anger fades, and you’re left standing scared stiff with nothing to say. Bro doesn’t even sound like himself, he’s so angry. He’s completely wasted._

_You try to turn and run, but your body won’t move, so he gets off of Cal, and storms over to you._

_Wake up, Dave, wake up. You’re having another hallucination, just please wake up._

_He grabs your wrist, hard, and pushes you out into the hall, and against the wall. Then, he hits you._

_Your first reaction is to drop to the floor to try to crawl away from him. Your face stings and your nose is bleeding again already. You’re not dreaming this time. The nightmare is real._

_Before you can get away, he grabs you, and kicks you back against the wall, then proceeds to kick you in the ribs and stomach. You curl into a ball and try to protect yourself, and cry out when his foot collides with your chest. When he can no longer get at your stomach, he steps on your throat._

_“Bro, please,” you beg, coughing up blood. “Stop! Please!”_

_He grabs your shirt and forces you up, then hits you across the face again. “I told you to stay in your fucking room!”_

_Between sobbing, coughing blood, and your aching body, you can’t breathe. You gasp and sputter for air and scream for him to stop when you can, but he doesn’t. He just keeps striking you over and over again in the head, holding you up against the wall by your neck, showing you who’s boss._

_When your body stops moving, he finally ceases. Your head rolls on your shoulders and your vision is red and blurred. You look up at him helplessly, begging for mercy. You can’t take any more hits. You’re fading in and out as it is._

_“Please...” you manage. Your voice is so shaky and staggered. “Please...”_

_He grabs your arm and pulls you down the hallway to your bedroom, where he dumps you next to your mattress. Then, he walks back out into the hall, slams your door shut, and is gone._

_You sit there on the floor bleeding, aching, and sobbing for a while before you try to pull yourself up into bed, but you have no strength left. You pass out on your bedroom floor._

_you open your eyes to see nothing but darkness agian_

_your head is no longer throbbing_

_your throat does not burn_

_you begin walking_

_forward_

_in the distance someone is_

_on the ground_

_stabbed thgouth the chest_

_again_

_you walk toward them_

_in the air you hear_

_a_

_aa_

_haa_

_haa_

_haa_

_you run_

_taoward them_

_theyre getting furtger and further away_

_you sprint_

_haa_

_haa haa_

_haa haa_

_ahaaahaa_

_you fall on your knees_

_anaahaaand you crawl toward them_

_its_

_bro_

_you crawl toward bro hes_

_srtabbed through the chest_

_haa hahahaaahaaa_

_hahaaa_

_youahahaaa craawl over to him and_

_ahhaaa haa haa_

_tyou crawll on top of him andd_

 

For a moment, you wake up. Under you, Bro tenses and moans loudly, gripping your hips as he thrusts up into you. "Nnghh! Cal!"

Blood from your nose drips down onto his chest. You lean down and kiss him to shut him up. Then, you slip back into your subconscious.

 

_you open your eyes and_

_youre kissing teal_

_their tongue is extended from_

_under their bag and_

_you try to pull_

_away you_

_push thrm away and_

_rip off the bag_

_haa_

_haa_

_haa_

_hee_

_hee_

_hoo_

_hoo_

_under the bag_

_you see_

_yourself_

_you stare back at yourself_

_no_

_no_

_it can't be you_

_it can't be_

_you can't_

_be cal_

_you can't be cal_

 

_You jolt awake and sit up. You're in your bed. You look around and gasp for air, then stare down at your palms. You bring them to your eyes and cry in fear for a moment before looking back up. Your bedroom door is wide open._

_Something is wrong, something is very wrong. You have to check on Bro._

_You throw off your blankets and get up and out of bed. Your legs are still wobbly from before when he beat you, but you ignore it. You force yourself to walk over to the doorway, and look down the hall. There is a trail of blood from your room leading all the way back to Bro’s._

_Despite how badly you want to run back to your bed and disappear, you take a step into the dark hall, and begin following the trail to Bro’s room. It doesn’t end when you’re at his door, it goes under._

_You’re so afraid that you can hear your own staggered breath, but you push the door open the rest of the way._

_The first thing you see is Bro, sprawled out on his bed, naked and bloody. Then, you turn and look at Cal. The one standing next to him, also drenched in blood and naked, holding one of Bro’s katanas in his hand._

_He’s staring down at Bro with a colorless expression, then he looks down at the katana, then up at you._ For the first time, you notice his eyes are red.

_Your fingers curl and your hands form fists as he speaks._

_“He cheated on me.”_

_You scream and run at him, ready to kill him or die trying―_ but he’s gone.

“Why, Dave?” You hear from behind you.

You slowly drag your feet and turn around to face John, who’s standing at the other side of the room, disemboweled. He stares at you with tears running down his cheeks, begging for an answer. In his hands he tries to hold up his bloody intestines.

“Why did you have to kill him? Wasn’t my love enough?”

You’re so confused and afraid. You take a step toward him, and he takes one back.

“John, what are you talking about!” He keeps backing away from you as you get closer. “I didn’t kill anyone! Cal killed him! Cal killed Bro!”

You back him into the wall, and he breaks down in sobs. You look down at your palms again. You’re holding the katana. You’re covered in blood, and you’re holding Bro’s katana. You instantly drop it and look back up at John, but he’s gone.

John is gone. Cal is gone. Bro is dead.

You fall to your knees and scream and sob until your voice fails you and your eyes are dry. Then, you push yourself up and crawl in bed with Bro’s body. You kiss him as if trying to revive him, but he’s dead. Bro is dead.

So eventually, you wrap your arms around his corpse, and you lay against him, hoping that by some miracle you’ll both just be swallowed up into the darkness.

and disappear


	9. Chapter 9

You don’t leave Bro’s body for an instant. Not even to eat. You just lay in bed with him for maybe a week before the school calls the police because you haven’t been showing up for class, and no one’s been excusing your absences. When they hear about the neighbors’ complaints about how your apartment suddenly reeks of death, they get a search warrant and discover you and your brother’s corpse.

They have to pull you, kicking and screaming, out of the apartment. You make every headline the next morning.

“16 Year Old Houston Boy Rapes and Murders Older Brother”

While the police collect evidence and your case is built, you’re forced to remain at the hospital, handcuffed to your bed. The nurse who takes care of you is weary at first, but eventually loosens up around you. When you ask here where your brother is, and if he’s okay, she tells you that he’s still injured and needs some more rest.

The other employees aren’t as nice as she.

The investigator who comes to question you isn’t very nice at all. When he asks you about your brother, he gets very frustrated when you tell him you don’t know.

Even though it’s pretty fucking obvious you’re guilty, he says, thanks to the US Justice System, you’re being forced to appear in court charged with sexual assault and third degree murder.

Luckily, when you finally meet your attorney, he turns out to be a very sharp, understanding man. You have to fill him in on every detail of your life pre-murder, and when you tell him about Cal, he’s very interested. He’s the only one who believes you.

The day he tells you your trial date, he’s very serious when he suggests that you should plead innocent. He says there’s enough evidence based on your current mental state and of that after the car accident for you to get off on the insanity defense.

The actual trial is in mid July. In the courtroom they have all the fans going, but it's still hot as hell. You're moved into the courthouse also in handcuffs, which are removed upon being sat next to your lawyer. In the desk next to yours sits the prosecutor. She's busy shuffling some papers together, and notices you staring right away. When she turns to address you, she's scowling. Like you're the scum of the earth.

 

"All rise for her honorable Judge Redglare."

 

Everyone stands, including you. When you sit, your attorney leans over and whispers "The jury looks pretty easy."

A tall woman in a dark cloak sits at the podium, and she looks over the room from behind her red-rimmed glasses. Everyone stares back at her, waiting to begin.

“The prosecution will now give their opening statement.”

The woman who had glared at you before now stands, straightens her tie, and goes right over to the jury box. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, here before you sits David Strider, a sixteen year old boy who believes that he can get away with murder scot free by making you good people believe he is not mentally sane. This is not a complicated offence, and the evidence, you’ll find, all supports the fact that this young man is not who he seems. Do not let his appearance deceive you, David Strider is a perverted murderer. On the night of May 27th, he snuck into his brother’s bedroom under the cover of darkness, crawled in bed with him, and then proceeded to rape and stab poor Dane Strider, while he was fast asleep―”

“That’s not true!” You yell, standing.

Everyone in the courtroom begins talking.

“Order! Order! Mr. Strider, please sit down!” The judge commands. Your lawyer takes your wrist and pulls you back down into your seat. “Ms. Pyrope, you may proceed.”

She gives you a smug little grin for a moment before turning to the judge. “Thank you, your honor.

“Because Dane Strider, a man of legal age, had been drinking that night, he was the unsuspecting victim of this heinous crime. Once he awoke, the two struggled, and David received the minor injuries he sustained while in the hospital. David then ripped free a sword mounted above Dane’s bed, and used it to stabbed him through the chest. Dane then bled to death in his bed.

“Ladies and gentlemen, all wrongful action deserves proper punishment. Do not let this young man get away these disgusting and horrifying acts, I demand you not show the peoples of this nation that criminals cannot escape penalty by simply, inappropriately claiming insanity. Show them justice. Show Dane Strider justice.”

She then turns to the judge. “That is all, your honor.” Then, she returns to her seat.

Judge Redglare’s straight face remains.

“The defense will now give their opening statement.”

Your lawyer stands and gives you a hearty pat on the shoulder before he too approaches the box.

He clears his throat. “Four months ago at the intersection between Lockhart and Scott Street, David Strider, the young man you see before you, was in a fatal car accident that claimed the lives of both his parents, and his best friend, Jonathan Egbert.”

You knit your brows together. What is he saying.

“Within the two months succeeding the accident, he and his older brother, Dane Strider, had to move to a small high rise building in the heart of Houston. There, David experienced traumatic hallucinations, nightmares, and panic attacks all due to post traumatic stress disorder caused by the car accident. He developed both schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder, which caused him to act out dangerously while his mind was in a subconscious state.

“It was during this state he murdered his older brother, Dane Strider.

“On the night of May 27th, Dane had been drinking, and beat his poor younger sibling, David. He struck him multiple times in the head, in the neck, and in the chest, and then took David to his bedroom, where Dane then raped him.

“During this time, David became disoriented due to the horrifying assault occurring and without being in a stable state of mind, took one of his brothers’ katanas, and stabbed him through the chest.

“This is not a heinous crime, ladies and gentlemen, this is an act of self defense against a man who David Strider thought he could trust. Do not punish a man who is innocent, save him from the debt his monstrous brother has imposed on him.”

Your lawyer then returns to his seat next to you. You don’t understand at all. Why is everyone lying. Bro didn’t rape you, you never killed him, and John wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be dead.

The prosecutor then brings in their evidence. Bloody bed sheets, photographs from your apartment, and Bro’s bloody katana are all wheeled into the courtroom.

The prosecutor gives a little slideshow of the pictures, showing Bro’s body on his bed, and his room. She explains in graphic detail to the jury how you allegedly crawled on top of him and forced him to have sex with you, then how the two of you struggled.

She shows them the fingerprints on the handle of the katana, and explains how you forced it out of the mount, and then impaled it through Bro’s chest. The jury is completely convinced now that you killed him.

Again, you stand and yell that it’s all a lie. You scream about how you couldn’t have killed Bro, Cal killed Bro. Judge Redglare slams her gavel down and demands you sit back down, and eventually you’re removed from the courtroom by two police officers.

The trial resumes a week later.

That day, the prosecutor called her first witness; the woman who lives below you.

“Where were you the night of May 27th?” The prosecutor asks, pacing around the podium.

“In my apartment, I was working on my English final for college.”

“In the days before this, did you hear or see the Striders?”

She fidgets in her seat and looks over at you. “Yes, every once in a while there’d be commotion from upstairs...”

“Please tell the jury what you heard, Miss Leijon.”

She’s quiet for a moment as she tries to remember. “...There would be screaming at times... every now and again you could hear a banging, but other than that it was quiet...”

They go back and forth and ask more questions, but she doesn’t seem to know anything. Your lawyer then questions her, asking if she’s ever seen your brother drinking, or with alcohol. She knows nothing.

The next witness is called it. It’s your theatre production teacher, Mr. S.

“David Strider was in your theatre production class, was he not?” She asks.

Up until this point, he’s been staring at you, like he can’t believe any of this is true. “Yes ma’am, David’s always been a good student of mine.”

“Does he get all his work done? Does he have a good grade in your class?”

“Yes, he’s usually right on top of things, always had an A.”

The prosecutor turns to the jury. “You here that? I good student. A good, A+ student.” She looks back at Mr. S. “When David returned to your class after the car accident, did you note any changes in behaviour?”

He’s gone back to staring at you again, but you can’t bring yourself to make eye contact. “No, he seemed very calm as usual... Got right back to work without complaints.”

“So you’d say that he had no mental impurities that distracted from work? No signs of PTSD, schizophrenia, or DID?”

He shakes his head. “No, not at all.”

“The prosecution rests.”

As she returns to her seat, your lawyer stands.

“Doc―may I call you Doc?” He asks. Mr. S just shrugs, then nods. “Please explain to me the schedule of your theatre production class.”

At first he looks around like he doesn’t understand the question, then proceeds. “The kids all come in and I brief them on their assignments for the day, then they group into their crews, and from there get to work in the theatre.”

“And they do this all period?”

“Yes.”

“Please inform me, Doc, which crew is David Strider a member?”

“Sound crew. He’s head of sound crew.”

“And how many other students are in the sound crew?”

“...None, just Dave.”

Your attorney turns then to the jury. “So you’re saying you only see the students at the beginning of class where you ‘brief’ them on assignments, and then you no longer see them the rest of the period?”

“...Yes, that’s correct.”

“And David is then left alone to complete assignments by himself because there is no one else in his crew?”

“Yes.”

“So then explain to me how you’re so sure that David doesn’t have any of these mental disorders when you aren’t even supervising him?”

He’s silent.

“The defense rests.”

They call in a few more witnesses, one of which is John’s Dad.

When he gets up and sits at the podium, you stare at each other. He looks so sorry for you. Why aren’t they calling John to the stand? He knows about your nightmares, he knows about Cal. Where is John.

“Mr. Egbert,” the prosecutor begins, “I’m sorry to hear about your son. He sounded like a brilliant young man.”

He says nothing.

“How long were he and David friends?”

He doesn’t speak for a minute, then opens his mouth, “Since they were eight.”

“How well would you say you know Mr. David Strider?”

He’s staring down at his lap, but then looks up at you. “He’d come over every weekend up until the accident.”

“And he was a completely fine and normal kid until then?”

“No.” Some members of the jury begin to whisper, the prosecutor doesn’t look like she expected him to say that. “Dave is a very exceptional young man, and even though sometimes he was disrespectful, he’s just a teenager.

“I can’t... I can’t fathom him being even capable of this crime... I knew his brother, they were both very close... Of course I don’t know everything about what went on at home, but I just can’t believe this could have happened.”

The prosecutor sucks in a breath of air. “Well, Mr. Egbert, I’m afraid it did. Did you ever see David after the accident?”

“Only once, maybe two months later... I was going to visit my son, and he was also at the cemetery.”

“What was he doing when you saw him?”

“He was leaving... We didn’t say anything, I just assumed he had gone to see John or his parents.”

“So for as long as you’ve known him, he’s never seemed to have any problems mentally? No signs of abuse or the disabilities mentioned?”

He shakes his head. “Never. I knew Dane drank, but I never knew about any beatings.”

“The prosecution rests.”

Your lawyer then questions him, but there isn’t really any more information they can squeeze out of him, so the case is concluded for that day.

Next time, your attorney presents his evidence, showing the jury a slideshow of photos from the hallway where Bro beat you. You don’t remember there being so much blood.

He points out each splatter individually, and tells in gory detail about how Bro continued to kick you and beat you after you begged him to stop. Then, he shows them the evidence of the sexual assault, and you cover your ears. _Why is everyone lying._

Once the rest of the real evidence is presented, you’re called to the stand as the final witness.

The prosecutor is the first to question you.

“David Strider, explain to me your relationship with your older brother, if you will.”

You look around the courtroom. Everyone seems to lean in, waiting for you to answer. You look at your attorney. He only gestures for you to go ahead.

“Bro... and I... are kind of distant...”

“How distant, Mr. Strider?”

“We talk and he takes care of me, but he doesn’t really... he doesn’t really...” You stare into the small audience of people in the room, which is full of reporters and some other witnesses. In the back sits _him_.

“Mr. Strider?” The prosecutor asks.

“He doesn’t really listen to me.”

“Can you go ahead and tell the jury what happened on the night of May 27th?”

Your hand which are in your lap grip your knees as you stare at them in the audience. Their teal eye just stares back.

“O-on May 27th... I came home and Bro was having dinner with Cal...”

Everyone is quiet.

“Excuse me?” The judge asks. “Mr. Strider, who is Cal?”

“Cal is a figment of David’s subconscious, your honor,” your lawyer states.

“He’s not!” You yell, standing a little. One of the police officers moves to make you sit back down, but the judge puts up a hand to stop him. “Cal’s real!”

“Who is Cal, then?” The prosecutor asks.

You sit back down slowly on your own. “Cal is... Bro’s boyfriend.”

Everyone in the courtroom begins talking or whispering and the judge has to call order again for them to quiet down.

“Does Cal have a full name?”

You shake your head.

The prosecutor doesn’t look very pleased to hear that. “How long has he been dating your brother? How did they meet?”

“They met just a few weeks before May 27th... Bro... hit him with the car. That’s how they met.”

“Where? Where does Cal live?”

“In front of the CMIL, that’s where Bro dropped him off, that’s where I saw him―he lives at the CMIL.”

One of the people who are part of the plaintiff begins looking up the information to see if there are any patients by the name of Cal there.

“So you’re saying Cal was a patient at the CMIL?”

You nod.

“And when you came home on the 27th Dane was having Cal over for dinner? What happened after that?”

“Bro... sent me to my room, and then... when he took a shower... Cal approached me in the kitchen and Bro put me to bed...”

“Continue.”

“In the middle of the night I heard them in Dane’s bedroom so I... I went to check on him and they were...” They keep staring at you. Your throat starts to close up as they stare at you.

“What were they doing, David?”

“They were having sex.”

She stands in front of the podium and waits for you to continue.

“Then... Bro came out and started hitting me... and he pushed me against the wall and kicked me and he just kept hitting me...”

“Did he sexually assault you?”

“No!” You yell, making everyone quiet.

“The evidence shows that he sexual penetrated you, so he either assaulted you, or you assaulted him, which was it?”

“He didn’t rape me, he had sex with Cal!”

“If he was the one sexually assaulting you, then how were you able to remove the katana from above his bed?”

“He had sex with Cal! Cal killed him! Cal killed him!” You scream. The entire courtroom goes into an uproar.

The judge finally gets everyone to quiet down, the one researching the CMIL speaks up.

“Your honor, I’ve just checked with the records from the Center of Mental Illness at Lockhart, and there is no patient, nor has there ever been a patient there admitted with the name Cal. He does not exist.”

No, this isn’t possible. They’re lying. They’re all lying. He’s right here. You can see him from where you sit at the podium. He’s right here in the courtroom.

Because now the prosecutor realizes she isn’t going to get anything out of you, she returns to her seat and your lawyer stands.

“David, please tell the jury about your relationship with Jonathan Egbert.”

“Objection, your honor,” the prosecutor claims, standing. “This has nothing to do with the murder of Dane Strider.”

The judge doesn’t look like she cares. “Overruled. You may proceed.”

Your attorney turns to you and gives you the okay to go ahead.

“John’s my best friend... and, recently we’ve been talking about going out...”

“How recently?” He asks.

“Right before Bro died. A few days before we ditched school to go to the park together, and he asked if I wanted to go out with him...”

Everyone begins whispering.

“David,” he says, making you look at him. You cringe at your name. “What happened on Lockhart. What happened in that car.”  
You don’t remember. You can’t remember.

“My mom and dad... they were...” You start to choke up. Your breath hitches in your throat and you can’t speak. He’s staring at you. Teal is―“We were driving, a-and John and I...”  


“What happened to John.”  


You don’t remember you don’t remember―“He held me and he―he―he said it was going to be all right―”  


“John died, David. In the car accident.”  


“No!”  


Your lawyer puts his hands on the podium, and articulates as clear as he can.

“John is dead.”

“NO!” You scream. “John’s not dead! John isn’t dead!”

In the audience, Mr. Egbert gets up and walks out of the courtroom, holding his handkerchief to his face. The judge calls for order as everyone begins talking and yelling. Your attorney nods to you, a sign that you did a good job.  
Eventually, everyone include you quiets down.

“And tell us about Cal. You said you see him, what does he do?”

You take in a shaky breath as you look back up at him in the audience. You lower your voice to just above a whisper. “I see him right now.”

Your lawyer’s face doesn’t change. “You see him right now? Where? What is he doing?”

You shake your head, “He’s in the audience. He’s sitting in the audience.”

Everyone turns and looks. He gets up and begins walking toward you. No one seems to see him. You lift a hand and you point at him before sobbing and screaming. He doesn’t stop.

“He’s right there, are you blind! He’s right fucking there!”

Everyone begins freaking out and Judge Redglare demands order, but he doesn’t stop. He keeps coming.

When you just scream out, your lawyer grabs your shoulders and holds you steady so you don’t collapse at the podium.

“David, he’s not there! Cal isn’t real!”

You open your eyes and sit up. Everyone’s staring at you. Cal is gone.

You are then taken back to your seat.

Both the prosecutor and your attorney give closing statements, and then the jury leaves. It takes a long, long time for them to reach a verdict.

When they finally return, the foreman stands and says, “We the jury find the defendant not guilty by reason of insanity.”

Your lawyer is ecstatic. You’re not going to prison.

But you are. You’re being forcibly placed in a mental institution.

You’re moved there immediately, but first you’re allowed to go back to the apartment and get some of your things before the landlord starts work on fixing the place up so he can rent it to someone else.

When you arrive, you find Bro’s room is entirely blocked off. Rolls of caution tape prevent you from entering, but you can still see in. You can still see all those empty cans of beer on the ground and his naked mattress. You were expecting to see some kind of tape outline of his body on the bed, since his actual body was no longer there, but was no such thing. After all, he was very dead when the police arrived.

You wonder where his body went.

You have no idea what happened to it.

The police officer who is keeping watch over you tells you to hurry it up, so you go to your old bedroom. He tells you to take everything you need, because you’re never coming back. He’s wrong.

In the end, all you take is your photo album, and your camera. You’re not allowed to have electronics or phones at the CMIL, so everything else remains. As you leave, you wonder what the landlord will do with your stuff. It doesn’t really matter.

At the CMIL, you’re given a room in the A block. The area of the hospital where all the dangerous patients are. The nurse takes you up to your room, which only has a bed, a desk, and a small window that looks over the street. She gives you some clothes to change into, and leaves your things on the desk.

“Lunch is at noon and will be brought to your room. If you’re good, then you’ll get to eat with the others.” Then she closes the door and leaves.

You hold up your new shirt.

It’s plain blue with CMIL in white letters. Your pants are the same color blue. You go ahead and change into them, then sit on your bed. You’re going to be here for a long time.

Within a month, you’re allowed to eat with the other patients, but you don’t talk to them. You don’t talk to anyone. As you eat your paper bag lunch, you watch and observe them.

They all belong here, they all need help, but not you. You’re not like them. They lash out at nurses, or refuse to eat. You don’t belong here with them.

Days are long and uneventful. Sometimes there are group therapy sessions, which you’re allowed to go to, but whenever you do, it doesn’t end well. The nurses say you have fits. Your nose starts bleeding, then you zone out and faint, and when you wake up they’re all standing over you, shining a light across your eyes.

Sometimes, they find you in the bathroom in the middle of the night clawing at your own neck, and scratching up and down your arms until they bleed. In the morning, they ask you why you were in the bathroom, doing it. They say you weren’t yourself when they approached you. You just kept saying “Dave needs to be punished. Dave needs to be punished.”

You never say anything in reply to them.

Most of the time, you just stay in your room, tucked up in the corner of your bed, watching the white walls and the shadows move across the room. Every day you sit silently and the fits happen less and less often. You stop passing out. You stop having nightmares. You stop seeing Cal.

Months go by and soon you have to get bigger clothes. After a year of sitting in your room alone, you’ve grown tall, and thin. Most days you refuse to eat, hoping maybe to starve yourself to death, but the nurses won’t let that happen. They’ve had to force you a few times.

Every night by the light of the streetlamp outside your window, you reread the newspaper articles in your photo album over and over again. Every night as your mind becomes just a little less clouded, you hate yourself more and more.

You don’t want to be you anymore. You don’t want anything to have to do with you anymore.

One day, since you didn’t show up for lunch, a nurse brings you one in a nice little paper bag. You don’t bother with the food, you’re much more fascinated with the bag itself. On the front, drawn in teal blue crayon, is a large eye. The same one you drew back in kindergarten, completely unchanged by time. It’s as if it was drawn yesterday. And, chronologically speaking, it was.

From then on, every day you strip yourself naked in your room, not wanting to be reminded of your past, and who you are, and you sit in the corner of your bed. You sit with your legs against your chest and the bag over your head. In the darkness of it and the corner, you can almost imagine you’re someone else completely.

When you’re nineteen, a new patient is admitted to the CMIL, and their spouse sues the hospital, saying that the name is too derogatory. Not wanting to have to take it to court, they go ahead and change the name, and everyone is given brand new blue shirts with the new acronym.

Center of Ailments at Lockhart.

In your state of needing a new identity, you find it’s perfect for you. Cal.

Instead of just hiding in the corner now, sometimes your stare out your window at the intersection just outside. You think about your new identity. It’s so fitting.

On the day of your twentieth birthday, no one celebrates. No one ever does. You spend the morning staring up at your ceiling, and then around noon, something in the back of your mind tells you to get up. So you do.

You stand at the window, naked, with the paper bag over your head, looking through the little hole right in the middle of the pupil. You stare at the cars going by.

As you watch, a little red Honda approaches the intersection, right out the window. Inside is a young man, his friend, and his parents. He looks out and up at the hospital, up at your window. He sees you and he screams.

His father in the driver’s seat is momentarily distracted by his scream, and doesn’t notice the light turning red.

You watch colorlessly from your window as they collide with another car in the intersection, and then are hit by another speeding through. Nurses rush out of the hospital to try to help them, but they can’t get the doors open. The two adults are already dead. In the back seat, the friend is disemboweled.

For a moment you remember the car accident four years ago today. Your hand subconsciously goes to your hip, and your fingers ghost over where your scar used to be. Bro always said it was too deep to fade, but he was wrong. When you look down at your hip, it’s not even visible anymore.

You then turn and look down at your open photo album on your desk. It’s open to the page with the news article of the car accident four years ago.

You’re getting close now.

A few months later, as you’re staring out the window again, you see a familiar truck drive by down Lockhart. Behind the wheel sits Dane Strider, on his way to work for the first time. You put your hand against the glass and watch him go, longing to get to see him again. Your empty heart aches in your chest. To be able to kiss him again is all you could ever wish for.

The next day, all the nurses are called to block B to take care of a patient who apparently lashed out and attacked a nurse with a piece of broken plate they had hidden under their pillow. It seems like everyone at the CAL is interested in seeing what’s going on, so no one pays attention to you as you walk out of block A.

No one notices as you walk right out of the building.

Outside you breathe in the fresher air, and then turn back to the building.

“Center for Mental Illness at Lockhart” can be read on the front. No wonder no one tried to stop you as you escaped.

You begin walking down the sidewalk, going nowhere in particular, just enjoying being out of your prison. At the end of Lockhart, you stand on the street corner and watch the people walk by you, going on their own business.

As you stand there, the bus pulls up at the stoplight. You look up at it.

Through the tinted glass windows, you see Dave Strider staring back at you. He watches you as the bus begins to move again, and until it turns and he disappears from sight, his eyes never leave you.

You return to the CAL after that. The nurses are shocked when you walk back in the front doors, and have no idea how you managed to escape, but they don’t seem very angry. They just escort you back to your room so you can rest.

The next morning you sit at your desk and reread your newspaper articles one last time.

“Crash at Lockhart Kills Three”, the first one reads. On the cover are pictures of Mr. and Mrs. Strider, and John Egbert. You stare down at his photo for an exceptionally long time. Somewhere in the back of your mind, the only place where a small piece of Dave still lives, you’d wished that he had been enough.

You no longer mourn him, and that’s the worst part.

But you’re not Dave, so you have no reason to. John is just some kid in an accident.

“16 Year Old Houston Boy Rapes and Murders Older Brother” is the title of the other.

You sigh a bit and stroke the photo of Dane with your finger. He’s no longer your bro. After, you return the articles to their sleeves. You wish you still had your photos of him. If you did, you’d hang them up all around your bare, white room.

You’ll be getting them back soon enough.

You flip to a different page where all the photos you’d developed in the hospital are. The nurses were so kind when they found out your camera had undeveloped film, and let you make a little darkroom to take care of it.

You pull out a picture of your hand. You remember taking this photo on the bus back when you first returned to school.

John never really was holding your hand.

You return it back to its sleeve, then get up and gingerly slip your photo album under your pillow just to be safe.

Four years ago, John Egbert told you time travel was impossible. Today, when you twist the doorknob of your room, push it open, and step out into the hall, you enter an overlapping moment in temporal space, and return to four years ago.

As you walk down the hall, a nurse spots you, and quickly escorts you out of the CMIL. Civilians aren’t allowed in block A.

Outside, you stand on the sidewalk, watching the cars go by until your spot a truck coming down the street. Just before it passes, you run out in front of it.

You’re only a little scraped up on your legs and arms, and before you can stand, you hear a car door slam. A man has gotten out, and runs over to you. He helps you up, and looks you over for any broken bones.

“Are you okay?” He asks, still holding you in his arms. You stare up at him, unable to form words. Your nose begins to bleed. “Here, I’ll get you cleaned up,” he says, and then begins helping you toward his truck.

“My name’s Dane.”

 

 

 

 

 

the end

 


End file.
